The Braves played a back-and-forth game with Washington on Tuesday night and despite a great night by Freddie Freeman and a strong game on Ender Inciarte’s plate, some poor defense by the Braves and some good defense by the Nats proved the difference. being in the 8-5 loss of the Braves to Washington.
Josh Tomlin took the mound for the Braves and, for the most part, he was everything the Braves could reasonably hope for from a man who basically came out of a bullpen role. He certainly gave some hard contact, but if you get four decent innings from a guy like that, like most of your other starters can not give you two, you take that. Tomlin’s last line on the day was 4 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K.
The Braves came on board first, and very quickly after that, when the first three hitters reached base via lasers with Travis d’Arnaud’s RBI double, giving the Braves an early 1-0 lead. The next two runs would be scored by the Nationals with a fair bit of hard contact and doubtful defense to blame and the Nationals would lead 2-1 going into the bottom of the third.
In the bottom half of the inning, the much-abused bottom third of the lineup came through when Adam Duvall transitioned to third on a Johan Camargo double before Austin Riley, who has shown some signs of life in recent days. shown, an inside smoked fastball for a two-run single to give the Braves a 3-2 lead. Austin ran himself on stage and showed some interesting ‘glide’ skills, but it was still good to see him contribute.
It was more Braves in the bottom of the fourth. After Dansby reached the base on the choice of a fielder, Freddie Freeman, who is still good at baseball. connected for a two-run homer to the right that extended the Braves’ lead to 5-2.
Against Tyler Matzek out of the bull and whew the top of the fifth was an adventure. Through the first seven hits, Matzek registered one out and he saw some more interesting ‘defense’ from Marcell Ozuna and a throwing error on Matzek on top of his complete inability to get anyone out. The Braves brought in AJ Minter after scoring three runs and the bases were still loaded with one out. Not ideal. Minter would then allow a run to score on a base, but would escape without more damage than that, as the Braves found themselves 6-5 afterwards.
The Braves almost took the lead when Austin Riley sent a scorer to midfield for what looked like a two-run homer. Unfortunately, Victor Robles had several ideas and despite the ball that hit Riley with an xBA of .910 … well, Robles hit the chances and made just a fantastic catch to finish the inning.
The Nationals would be the next to score, as the Braves are crushing a few chances in the meantime. At the top of the eighth inning, Robles would also get work with the ball with a leadoff double and would come home a few counts later on an RBI single from longtime Braves nemesis Trea Turner. Shane Greene would continue to get a double play and a ground to get out of the inning, but the damage was done.
The Braves would have their chances late in the game. They had rounds on the corners with one out with d’Arnaud on the plate at the bottom of the eighth, but he was exclaimed over contamination of the bat. Marcell Ozuna would then fly softly to end the inning and Braves fans were sad. It’s honestly noteworthy how bad this team has been with rounds on third with less than two outs.
The Nationals would add something offensive in the top of the ninth. After Mark Melancon allowed back-to-back base runners after getting two quick outs, Eric Thames would get an RBI single to push the Nationals lead to 8-5. Melancon would then run Victor Robles to load the bases, but luckily he got Trea Turner to ground to keep things reasonable.
Unfortunately, the Braves could not repeat the magic of yesterday and instead of a crazy rally, they went quietly into the bottom of the ninth, when Washington secured the win.
