The Washington Nationals have continued to show that their offense is plenty potent at the moment. However, the Atlanta Braves were able to out-slug the Nationals in this one as two massive homers from Michael Harris II helped power Atlanta to an 8-6 win over the Nats.
The fireworks started early for both teams — though one team in particular has grown quite used to getting off to quick starts here in 2026. Zack Littell has proven to be a bit prone to giving up the long ball and the Braves wasted
no time in continuing to pour on that particular punishment, as Drake Baldwin hit a deep fly to right-center to put the Braves on the board early.
That solo homer ended up giving Didier Fuentes a chance to pitch with the lead. It didn’t last long, as the Nationals jumped on Fuentes and made it a very long first frame back in the bigs for him. Once the Nationals got to two outs, it’s as if their lineup collectively remembered “Hey, we’re the highest-scoring team in baseball in the first inning, we should act like it,” and started mashing. Daylen Lile got a straight heater from Fuentes and crushed it for a three-run shot that put the Nationals ahead and then an RBI double from Jorbit Vivas made it a three-run lead for Washington. The Nats now have 28 first-inning runs this season and it feels like just about half of them have come against the Braves in this series, alone!
While this did end up being a short outing for Fuentes, the 20-year-old did a good job of making sure that it wasn’t a disastrous outing as well. Fuentes only pitched three innings but the youngster was able to pitch his way out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam by striking out José Tena and Keibert Ruiz to end the inning and snuff out the scoring threat. That last strikeout was his seventh of the outing and while everybody would’ve preferred to have seen Fuentes get deeper into this game, it’s pretty clear that Fuentes has the talent to get it done based on the number of punch-outs alone.
It also helped that Fuentes got major backup from his teammates at the plate, as they made this another rough day at the office for Zack Littell. An error from Jorbit Vivas allowed Ozzie Albies to reach base safely to lead off the second and then Michael Harris II immediately made the Nationals pay for the mistake by crushing one into the upper deck in right field for a two-run shot that made it a one-run game. The line kept moving after that and then Ronald Acuña Jr. eventually made it a tie ballgame with his sacrifice fly to deep right-center. Just like that, the Braves had wiped out the three-run deficit in very quick fashion and we had ourselves another high-scoring contest right out of the gate.
The Braves weren’t done there, though. In fact, Money Mike wasn’t done there, either. Harris’ second dinger of the game may not have been as majestic as his first but it was more fun to witness since it put the Braves in front. The one saving grace for the Braves in this series has been that if they can withstand the early flurry of offense from Washington, the Nationals’ pitching staff will provide an opportunity for this team to get back in it. That’s why Didier Fuentes keeping Washington at just four runs was so important since it allowed the lineup a shot to stay in the game and eventually capitalize on some chances.
The big hits just kept on coming for the Braves as Atlanta ended up handing Zack Littell his second-straight outing with at least eight runs allowed. The final blow came from Matt Olson, who hit one into the bullpen out in right-field for a three-run shot that made it an 8-4 game for the Braves in the fourth inning alone. Littell has now giving up homers to Acuña, Harris, Olson and Riley — Riley in particular was probably cursing his luck that he wasn’t able to get in on the fun while he was out there!
Martín Pérez came in to pitch some relief after Didier Fuentes was done, which makes things a bit interesting for the Braves since Pérez was originally scheduled to start tonight’s game and then was pushed to Thursday when Fuentes got called up. We’ll probably see some more shuffling before tomorrow afternoon’s contest as Pérez ended up going three innings in this one. He stabilized things for about two innings before he ran into trouble in the sixth inning. That was when Joey Wiemer led off the sixth with a deep fly and then James Wood continued to mash the baseball as he crushed a solo homer of his own in order to make it an 8-6 game heading into the final innings of the contest.
The onus was now on Atlanta’s high-leverage relievers to get the job done in the late stages of this game. Dylan Lee got the seventh inning and sat down the Nats in 1-2-3 fashion in order to hand the baton to Tyler Kinley. Joey Wiemer and James Wood both reached base in the same inning but this time, it was a lot quieter than what happened in the sixth inning. Wiemer coaxed a one-out walk out of Kinley and then Walt Weiss decided that he wasn’t going to give James Wood a chance to make his presence felt once again and gave him the free pass to first with two outs. Kinley responded by striking out Curtis Mead to end the inning and ensure that the Braves could head to the ninth with the lead.
That set the stage for Robert Suarez to hopefully get the job done to finish things off in the ninth inning. Suarez gave up a leadoff single on the very first pitch he threw but the rest of the inning was similarly quick. It only took eight (8) pitches total for Suarez to finish things off and give the Braves at least a split of this four-game road series.
There are definitely some questions about how the pitching is going to be set up for Thursday afternoon’s game after Martín Pérez was pressed into duty early on in this one but the good news is that the Braves will be able to answer those questions after winning a ballgame. Washington’s lineup is no joke but the Braves have clearly found their footing as a collective at the plate so far and tonight was another example of that. Zack Littell was struggling heading into this one and sure enough, the Braves were able to make sure that he was unable to bounce back and stabilize things for this beleaguered Nationals pitching staff.
Instead, the Braves are now heading into Thursday afternoon with the idea that they could be able to slug their way out of any trouble that they may face. It’s not an especially great way to live as a baseball team (as the Nationals themselves are proving) but in this series, the power surge may help push the Braves to a pretty big four-game series win. Also, the more Atlanta can keep on winning while both the Phillies (currently losing 6-2 to the Cubs in the sixth inning as of publishing) and the Mets (tied 2-2 in the eighth inning) continue to struggle, the more they can start putting some increasingly-large distance between them and their two foes from the Northeast. Let’s keep this going!
