Remember when Ozzie Albies bopped those two big fly balls just over the big wall in right field at Truist Park in order to help push the Braves to a 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers? Yeah, that was back on June 20 and that was the last time the Braves won a series. Ever since then, they got swept by the Padres (in Petco Park so what else is new), they dropped a series to the Giants, they came up short against the Cardinals and then somehow managed to split a four-game series at home against the Mets.
I’m saying that to say that it’s been a rough stretch for the Braves since they toppled the NL Central-leading Brewers. Still, they’ve shown signs of continuing to improve so they can potentially scratch and claw their way out of this rough patch and the most encouraging thing in particular was the offense showing signs of life. If that continued then the Braves would be in good shape and they’d be able to compete against Pittsburgh and their high-powered offense as well. Now it’s time to see how well the Braves fared against the Buccos.
Tuesday, July 7
Pirates 12, Braves 4
Ryan O’Hearn hit three homers and had 10 RBI in this one. That’s it folks, that’s the ballgame!
It’s kind of hard to win when one guy has 10 RBI by himself! Indeed, O’Hearn became the first person to reach double-digit RBI in a single game since Shohei Ohtani did it back in 2024. In fact, O’Hearn had a legitimate shot at four dingers in one game but unfortunately for him, shutdown reliever Jorge Mateo held him to a single in his final at-bat so O’Hearn was unable to make it four homers in one game. Still, Cooperstown accepted his helmet while the Braves accepted that it was a bad night at the office for Hurston Waldrep and Connor Thomas in particular.
Wednesday, July 8
Braves 3, Pirates 0
Fortunately, the Braves appeared to flush the bad memories of Tuesday night and proceeded to absolutely clamp down on Pittsburgh’s lineup in the middle game of this three-game series. We ended up getting a serious pitchers’ duel between Grant Holmes and Jared Jones and while Holmes was impressive in his five innings of shutout ball, Jones was even better as he carried a perfect game through six innings.
Jones was not given the opportunity to go for that perfect game because Pirates manager Don Kelly pulled Jones from the game after he was done in the sixth and sure enough, that ended up being the spark that got Atlanta’s offense going. Ozzie Albies ruined the perfect game in the seventh and then Joey Bart marked his return to PNC Park with a two-run dinger in the eighth that gave the Braves the lead and broke the deadlock.
An insurance run was added in the ninth and that meant that Raisel Iglesias was in line to bounce back from his blown save on Monday. Iglesias did give up a hit this time around but he otherwise had little trouble finishing off the Pirates and getting another save while helping push the Braves over the finish line for a series-tying win.
Thursday, July 9
Braves 10, Pirates 5
This one started off encouragingly enough for the Braves as they put up three runs in the first three innings at Mitch Keller’s expense and actually ran him from the game during those three innings. However, that was when Bryce Elder fell into some old bad habits and served up two of his vintage hanging sliders to Bryan Reynolds and Esmerlyn Valdez, who went back-to-back to get the Pirates back into the game.
The fourth inning saw the Braves get comfortable again in the lead as they plated three runs in their half of the inning (including a two-run dinger from Jim Jarvis — his first as a big leaguer) before Elder got tagged for a dinger again in the bottom half of the fourth. This time, it was a two-run shot from Jake Mangum and while the pitch wasn’t as bad as the other two, the result was the same and the Braves had to hold on to a two-run lead heading into the middle frames.
Mangum added an RBI double in the fifth to bring the Pirates within one run and then the bottom of the eighth inning saw James Karinchak and the Braves tenuously holding on to that lead as Pittsburgh had a runner in scoring position. Fortunately, Karinchak escaped with the lead following a strikeout, a ground out and a bullet that was smacked directly into Matt Olson’s glove for the final out. That ended up being crucial because Mike Yastrzemski ended up coming through with a massive grand slam against Dennis Santana that gave the Braves the breathing room they needed to saunter to a 10-5 series win.
Remember when it felt like this team just couldn’t find any sort of power at the plate? Those days appear to be in the rear view mirror for the Braes now because it certainly appears that this Braves team is really starting to do some serious slugging again. Joey Bart and Mike Yastrzemski both came up absolutely huge with their well-timed dingers during this series and it was also nice to see Matt Olson keep it going at the plate with a dinger in the series finale.
Even Jim Jarvis got in on the fun and congratulations are in order for him for his first big league homer — and he nearly had his second one a few innings later! It may have been tempting to think that Atlanta was just taking advantage of a beleaguered Mets pitching staff over the weekend but it really does feel like the bats have come back to life for the Braves. That’s huge since as we’ve seen from this series, the pitching is still in a spotty position at the moment.
With that being said, it was certainly encouraging to see Grant Holmes successfully navigate a second trip through the order in his start and Raisel Iglesias took the opportunity to bounce back from an extremely rare blown save earlier this week by dusting off one of the victories during this season. He didn’t even have to pitch in the series-clincher and that was due to the fact that guys like Danny Young, James Karinchak and Victor Mederos were able to step up and live up to the standards that the rest of the bullpen has set for this season.
All in all, it’s a solid series win on the road and hopefully the Braves will be able to carry this mojo with them to St. Louis for the final series of the first half. We’ve been saying for a while that they desperately need the break to regroup and while that may still be true with the Phillies and now also the Marlins creeping up on them, it sure would be nice to see the Braves take that opportunity to regroup while going into the clubhouse turn (so to speak) off the heels of a successful road trip. They’ve finished off the first leg in strong form and now it’s time for the second part. We’ll see what happens.
