Austin Riley, Ronald Acuna power Braves to 3-2 victory behind a dominant Kyle Wright

After three extremely frustrating losses, the Braves needed to get back to winning against the bad and injured Rockies.

Kyle Wright got the start and struck out two in the top of the first, working around a Charlie Blackmon walk. After an Acuna strikeout, the Braves offense got rolling in a very favorable matchup, with a Dansby walk and an Austin Riley homer.

William Contreras singled with two outs but was thrown out at home on a double that was absolutely scalded by Michael Harris.

After that, both pitchers were pretty good through four innings, with only the occasional baserunner. Two Braves struck out in the fifth, but Ronald Acuna hit an absolute bomb, that went a projected 444 feet and had an exit velocity of 111.4 MPH. That is really good to see from Ronald after he missed a few games with a sore knee.

Kyle Wright was fantastic for the Braves tonight, with 7.0 innings of scoreless baseball with 6 strikeouts and only 2 walks. Just what the doctor ordered for a Braves team needing a win. AJ Minter got the eighth after a rough Sunday appearance and was dominant, striking out two in a 1-2-3 inning.

In another redemption opportunity, Kenley Jansen came in to close out the game with a save opportunity after a brutal outing on Saturday. Kenley allowed a deep fly ball to his first batter, C.J. Cron, that was pretty scary, but only a flyout. After striking out Jose Iglesias, Kenley walked Randal Grichuk on a full count. He then allowed another deep fly ball to Michael Toglia on the first pitch, but this one landed on the other side of the wall for a two-run homer and Toglia’s first major league homer. This was not quite the same level of confidence-building redemption for Kenley as it was for AJ Minter. Kenley then threw 5 straight balls to Sean Bouchard, which resulted in a full count, because CB Bucknor was the home plate umpire, and got a groundout to end the game. Bucknor being awful was a theme of the evening.

This was a pretty simple game, to be honest. Three homers produced all of the scoring and there weren’t even many baserunners overall. Braves win with 2 homers to the Rockies’ 1, as Kyle Wright and AJ Minter were fantastic for eight innings before Kenley scraped by with the save in the ninth.

Join us tomorrow for the rubber-match at 7:20 PM ET.