Braves offense goes silent in 5-0 loss to the Phillies

The Atlanta Braves were unable to find any offense in a 5-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies Saturday night.

Kyle Wright made his third start of the season and turned in his best performance of the season although one bad inning came back to haunt him. Wright and Jake Arrieta matched zeroes through the first three innings. Philadelphia got on the board first in the fourth as Wright left a breaking ball out over the middle of the plate to J.T. Realmuto who drove it out to left for his fourth homer of the season to make it 1-0.

Didi Gregorius followed with a first pitch single. Wright worked the count to 2-2 against Jean Segura when Gregorius broke for second. The pitch appeared to be in the strike zone but was called a ball. Travis d’Arnaud’s throw to second skipped past Adeiny Hechavarria and Gregorius moved all the way to third. Segura walked on the next pitch to put runners at the corners with no one out. That would bring Jay Bruce to the plate who would jump all over the first pitch from Wright for a three-run bomb to extend the lead to 4-0.

Wright would recover from there retiring the next three hitters in order but would now be looking at a sizeable deficit.

Atlanta would have their best scoring chance in the sixth. Hechavarria led off with a single against Arrieta. Ronald Acuña Jr. then worked a walk to put runners at first and second with no one out. Dansby Swanson jumped all over the first pitch he saw from Arrieta but lined it right to Gregorius at short who flipped to second for the double play. Freddie Freeman then lined out sharply to Bruce in left to end the inning.

Wright pitched around a two-out double by Bruce in the sixth and would exit having allowed six hits and four runs over six innings. He struck out three and walked three. While some will look at that line and not be impressed, this was a much better performance by Wright who threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 26 batters.

The Phillies tacked on another run in the eighth Bryce Harper doubled and then came around to score on a single by Gregorius.

The Braves finished the game with just four hits, two of which belonged to Hechavarria. Atlanta’s first four hitters combined to go 0-for-15 with a walk and seven strikeouts.

The series will continue Sunday with a doubleheader featuring two seven inning games. The Braves have yet to announce their starter for Game 1 but will go with Max Fried in Game 2.