Stellar sophomores smash San Francisco in 5-1 win

It was a marquee pitching matchup on paper, but the Logan Webb portion of the night didn’t quite live up to its billing, so the fearsome sophomore twosome of Spencer Strider and Michael Harris II ended up stealing the show once again. The Braves jumped out early and never looked back in a relaxed 5-1 win.

It took just until the second batter of the game for the Braves to jump out to a lead, as Harris smashed a ball into right field that went for a homer, even though I have no idea where it actually landed. You have to hit it pretty high to get it out past the gargantuan edifice in right, but that’s what Harris did with his 33-degree drive, and the Braves had an early lead.

It took until Harris’ turn in the order rolled around again for the Braves to extend their lead. He hit a seeing-eye single to right to start the fourth, stole second, and came around to score on a Matt Olson double. Marcell Ozuna immediately followed with a hard-hit liner single that Olson managed to score on, which is as weird as it sounds.

Already trailing 3-0, the Giants left Webb in to face the top of the Atlanta order for a third time in the sixth, and it went predictably: Ronald Acuña Jr. tripled to start the frame, and then was knocked in by Harris’ third hit of the day, this time a sharp liner to right. Harris then committed his second base burglary of the night and moved to third on a groundout, before scoring on a foul territory sacrifice fly by Olson off old friend Alex Wood. The Braves did essentially nothing off Wood for the rest of the game, though Acuña did barrel his second ball of the night in the eighth... which went for an out (argh).

On the pitching end, things went about as swimmingly. Spencer Strider showed few ill effects with regards to facing the Giants twice in a row — he had a 10/1 K/BB ratio in seven scoreless against them last weekend, and followed it up with a 9/1 K/BB ratio in seven innings this time around. His only dalliances were a pair of one-out singles in the second that were erased by a strikeout and a scary-but-actually-not-hit-all-that-well lineout, and then a leadoff triple by another old friend, Joc Pederson, in the seventh. Pederson came around to score on a groundout to make it a 5-1 game and cap the scoring.

Joe Jimenez came on for the eighth and allowed two hard-hit singles but prevented the runners from scoring. Raisel Iglesias closed out the game with a two-strikeout inning, though he did allow a barreled double to J.D. Davis to make the game take slightly longer.

Overall, in this game, Braves batters posted a 3/2 K/BB ratio, while Braves pitchers posted an 11/1 K/BB ratio. That’ll get it done most days. Logan Webb had one of his worst outings of the year, with just a 1/1 K/BB ratio. Michael Harris II filled up the box score with three hits, including a homer, and two steals — he scored three of the Braves’ five runs and drove in two. The Braves will try to continue to torment the Giants tomorrow afternoon.

Also, as one more bit of news, from the pre-game activities before the Braves won — the team indicated that while Ozzie Albies would not be indicated from the Injured List during this series, it was possible that he might return on this road trip, potentially during the four-game set with the Dodgers.