As the Braves debuted their blue City Connect 2.0 jerseys, they hoped for more quality innings from Bryce Elder in the first game of a homestand against the Guardians.
Elder walked Jose Ramirez in the first, but struck the next batter out to start the game with a scoreless frame. Ronald Acuna nearly made my prediction true in his first at-bat, hitting a ball that might have been a homer in another park, on another night, or (perhaps most importantly) with a different ball, but instead fell for a flyout.
The second inning was a quiet one and Elder worked around a Kwan single in the third before the Braves drew first blood with singles from Dominic Smith and Michael Harris before a broken bat single from Acuna brought Smith home. Baldwin unfortunately grounded into an inning-inning double-play, limiting the scoring to one run in the frame, which Elder gave back with a solo homer from Kyle Manzardo in the fourth.
The Guardians went single-walk-single with one out in the fifth, taking a 2-1 lead ahead of Cleveland’s two msot dangerous hitters in DeLauter and Ramirez. Elder walked DeLauter to load the bases for Jose Ramirez, which is exactly the type of situation you want to avoid against the Guardians. Bryce struck out Jose Ramirez, ending his outing on a high note, before Walt Weiss pulled him for Aaron Bummer to face the lefty Manzardo. That worked, as he got Manzardo to pop out, ending the inning. Tyler Kinley got the sixth and worked a 1-2-3 frame on contact outs. In the home frame, Ronald finally hit his first homer of the season, on a moonshot to left field, tying the game up at 2 runs, making my pregame prediction come true.
Drake Baldwin followed Ronald’s solo shot with a line drive single, still with no outs. Matt Olson made good on that situation with a 111.6 MPH moonshot of his own over the Chop House on a 3-0 count, as 3 batters turned a 1-2 deficit into a 4-2 lead against Cecconi.
Austin Riley made for the fourth straight 104+ MPH batter ball with another single, as it was clearly a mistake for the Guardians to let Cecconi face the Braves’ lineup a third time through. Austin took second and third on groundouts against the Guardians’ reliever Festa and Dominic Smith singled him home before Michael Harris launched another homer to give the Braves a commanding 7-2 lead.
Dubon hit a ringing double and Acuna laced a lineout to end the inning. Dylan Lee handled the seventh in 1-2-3 fashion with one strikeout, and the Braves got some small ball insurance with walks from Olson and Yaz followed by singles from Albies and Smith to make it a 9-2 ballgame. Jose Suarez got the eighth and allowed some hard contact, lost his command, and allowed three runs, failing to complete the eighth inning of a 9-3 game and handing a two on, two out situation to Joel Payamps with a 4 run lead. Payamps got a deep flyout to end the inning with a nice play from Michael Harris.
The Braves’ bats once again added some insurance in the eighth, on a bloop from Dubon and a double from the still-scorching-hot Drake Baldwin. Matt Olson just missed what would have been a two-run oppo shot before Austin Riley brought Drake home on a line drive single. Osvaldo Bido got the ninth and walked the leadoff hitter, but got a double play and ended the game with a Jose Ramirez flyout.
Join us again for game 2 tomorrow night, same time and place.
