If I told you beforehand that the Atlanta Braves would end up winning their first four-game series of the season in order to keep this fantastic run of form to start the season going, you absolutely would’ve taken it. With that being said, this was definitely a bit of a Monkey’s Paw situation where the Braves had to take some serious lumps to get this series going before they hit their stride and dropped the hammer down on the Miami Marlins.
So while the Braves may have gotten absolutely dump trucked
in the first game of the series and lost Drake Baldwin to injury in the process, things largely went their way from that point forward. They even got Ronald Acuña Jr. back from the IL and didn’t lose him to a thumb ailment during the series, either! This ended up being a truly lovely time for the Atlanta Braves during thsi series and now it’s time to take a look back at how it all went down.
Monday, May 18
Marlins 12, Braves 0
The Braves got demolished, Ronald Acuña Jr. was activated from the IL before the game, Drake Baldwin hurt his oblique during the game before going on the IL and Aaron Bummer was released after the game. That’s all you need to know from this one, so let’s move on!
Tuesday, May 19
Braves 8, Marlins 4
Now this was more like it! The Braves quelled any fears of a potential slump by scoring a pair of runs in the first inning of this one but the lead didn’t last for long. Miami snatched the lead back in their half of the first inning after a leadoff homer from Xavier Edwards and a two-RBI double from Kyle Stowers put the Fish in front. A fourth-inning sacrifice fly made it 4-2 Marlins and it was clear that the Braves were going to have to get it in gear or risk falling into a 2-0 hole against Miami.
The good news is that from the fifth inning onwards, it was all Braves. Martín Pérez wrapped up his night in the fifth inning with a career-high 10 strikeouts to his name and he left the game with the Braves only behind by one run after Matt Olson delivered an RBI double in the top of the fifth. Michael Harris II completed the comeback with a game-tying homer in the sixth and then the Braves broke out for three runs in the eighth in order to go ahead.
The go-ahead blow was delivered by Marucio Dubón on an RBI infield single and then Ha-Seong Kim put the icing on the cake with an RBI single of his own in the ninth in order to bring us to our final score of 8-4. Monday night was suddenly a distant memory.
Wednesday, May 20
Braves 9, Marlins 1
Atlanta took the series lead in dominant fashion as this one eventually turned into a bit of a laugher. Heriberto Hernández delivered a sacrifice fly in the first inning to put the Marlins in front and that was as good as it got for Miami all night. That was the only real misstep for Chris Sale, who proceeded to toss seven dominant innings while not giving the Marlins much of a sniff outside of that run in the first inning.
Meanwhile, the Braves wasted little time in responding and remained in firm control of this contest for the rest of the way. Austin Riley clubbed a three-run bomb into the batters’ eye to give the Braves the lead in the second and it stayed that way until the sixth, which is when Atlanta exploded for five runs. Dominic Smith had a particularly big day in this one, as he hit two homers — one of which was an actual, honest-to-goodness, by-the-book, cleared-the-fence home run and the other was a Little League homer in the eighth inning that occurred thanks to an unfortunate outfield collision between Owen Caissie and Estuery Ruiz and then a resultant poor throw from Ruiz following the collision. Smith lumbered all the way home and the Braves were well on their way to taking control of the series.
Thursday, May 21
Braves 9, Marlins 3
Once the smoke had cleared on Thursday night, it was scarcely believable to remember that this team had gotten absolutely demolished to start the series. Instead, this ended up being a gentleman’s sweep in dominant fashion for Atlanta as they continued to bring the lumber for a third straight night. Spencer Strider didn’t reach double digits on the strikeout counter but he pitched pretty deep into the game (6.1 innings) and picked up nine strikeouts along the way. he did give up three homers but the good news is they were all of the solo variety, which meant that Miami was unable to keep up with Atlanta’s bats on this night.
And boy, oh boy, Atlanta’s bats came out swinging almost immediately once again. Michael Harris II was the star of the show, as he bookended the night with home runs — he lifted off for a two-run shot to the lawn past the fence in right-center for his first dinger of the game and then he capped off the night with a deep fly to the batters’ eye in center for his second dinger of the night. Harris finished the series with six hits (three of which were homers) and five RBI as he truly enjoyed his time in South Florida beating down on the Marlins.
Mike Yastrzemski also continued to keep his good run of form at the plate going with a homer in the fourth and an RBI double in the sixth (that ended the inning because Yaz got caught trying to stretch it to third base. Base running, y’all!) and Mauricio Dubón continued to get it done at the plate with a two-RBI single of his own that gave the Braves a comfortable 8-3 lead in the eighth inning. Although Ronald Acuña Jr. exited this game as a precaution with a thumb bruise, he did so after plating two runners with an RBI single of his own in the fifth inning that started to give Atlanta some breathing room. This was another night of the lineup getting the job done in all facets of the game as they took the four-game series in convincing fashion.
Outside of everything that happened on Monday (both the result and losing Drake Baldwin to an IL stint) and yet another injury scare for Ronald Acuña Jr., this series went about as well as you’d expect a Braves series in Miami would go. Atlanta has very rarely had serious problems with the Marlins and this series provided more of the same. In fact, the Braves are now 77-41 against the Marlins all time at what formerly used to be called Marlins Park and this was just another successful trip down to South Beach for the Braves.
Of course, it didn’t come without its fair share of hiccups but perhaps that’s what makes this such an impressive series win for the Braves. The loss on Monday was just a clear aberration and from that point forward, Atlanta established itself as clearly being the better team. It’s a nice look into this team’s mentality — one that seems to embody the old baseball mantra of never getting too high or two low. The Braves didn’t get too low on themselves after the nasty loss on Monday and kept things going one day at a time as they proceeded to take series with three straight wins.
Thanks to the Phillies finally slowing down a bit by dropping a series to the Reds and the Nationals splitting a series against the Mets, the Braves will be heading into the final weekend before Memorial Day as the only team above .500. They’re nine-and-a-half games clear of the Phillies and the now have a golden opportunity to continue leaving the Nationals in their dust if they can pull off yet another series win this weekend. It very likely won’t be easy since the Nats are continuing to rake at the plate but if Atlanta’s offense hits like it did during these past three games in Miami then it may not matter. We could be in for an exciting weekend series and the Braves will be rolling into it brimming with confidence after taking care of business over four games (Monday notwithstanding) in Miami.
