Braves turn to Josh Tomlin to keep win streak going

You would be excused if you turned off the game last night because, well, Touki Toussaint struggled mightily and the Braves found themselves in a hole late into the game. However, thanks to a stellar relief performance from Huascar Ynoa and two homers in the bottom of the ninth including a walk-off from Dansby Swanson, the Braves managed to steal a win from the Nationals.

Finding themselves all alone in first place as a result of that victory and despite losing most of their rotation and two of their top position players for extended lengths of time, the Braves now turn to Josh Tomlin for the start to see if they can extend their winning streak to four. Tomlin has been a delight out of the bullpen as essentially the guy the Braves turn to when things go south for their starters which, as it turns out, has happened quite a bit. In his innings-eater role, Tomlin posted a 1.59 ERA while throwing a bunch of strikes and accumulating 0.4 fWAR in eight appearances.

The Braves offense, despite being without the services of Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies, has been doing pretty well thanks to contributions from Marcell Ozuna, Nick Markakis, Adam Duvall, and last night’s hero Dansby Swanson. However, it is worth noting that the offense does rank 20th in the league in terms of fWAR and will just have to keep making it work while their injury situation stabilize and improve.

For the Nationals, they will be sending Austin Voth to the hill. While he isn’t exactly a name that inspires fear in the hearts of anyone, he has pitched well against Atlanta in his previous four appearances against him although the Braves player with the most plate appearances against him, Freddie Freeman, has just eight.

Game Date/Time: Tuesday, August 18, 7:10 p.m. ET

Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia

TV: Fox Sports Southeast

Streaming: MLB.tv

Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan, WNNX 100.5, Braves Radio Network, La Mejor 1600/1460/1130 AM