The offensive support came early, but it held up – mostly because of the heady pitching by the newest member of the Braves.
The Atlanta Braves made a bold move this weekend in choosing to call up yet another top rookie prospect in Mike Soroka to take – at least for now – the 5th spot in the pitching rotation.
He did not disappoint.
Soroka went 6 strong innings. He struck out 5. The Mets got just 6 hits off of him – 3 by Yoenis Cespedes. He walked none.
Only Cespedes managed to do any meaningful damage – a homer in that last (6th) inning.
But for the night, Soroka pitched like he belonged. He out-pitched Noah Syndergaard and kept the Braves on top as they now enjoy a 3 game winning streak and are knocking on the door of first place – just a half-game behind these New York Mets.
The Big Start
Continuing with the ploy of batting the pitcher 8th and Ender Inciarte 9th, the Braves started with Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna at the top.
Almost immediately, the Braves struck: Albies singled, Acuna doubled, Freddie Freeman doubled in those base-runners, and then Nick Markakis singled to bring in Freeman.
3-0 Braves – practically before the Mets’ faithful had enough time to find their seats. Heck, Mike Soroka ended up getting his first MLB at bat (and he almost got it by Adrian Gonzalez) before his first MLB pitch.
If there was a downer on the night, it was that while the Braves continued to work counts and pound out hits, they couldn’t finish after that early outburst. 5 hits came in the 1st inning – 10 after that, but no other runs.
Hold ’em, Kid
That meant Soroka. 80 pitches, 58 strikes. He could have gone further… and maybe should have… but it was his first start, so that’s still part of the equation on whether to continue his outing, and the bullpen held up their end tonight… with a couple of scares.
- Shane Carle came out to pitch the 7th, but almost immediately realized that he had no feel for the ball. 2 pitches, 2 balls, and he called for the trainer. After some hang-wringing, the word came that he had numbness in his throwing thumb and forefinger. The symptoms appear to have subsided, but it’s still something of concern.
- The 9th inning was a lot more exciting than it needed to be.
After a Todd Frazier single against Arodys Vizcaino, the entry “Gonzalez singled to center, Frazier to center” appears in the play-by-play.
What happened was a loss of communications between Albies, Swanson, and Inciarte. The ball was a pop-up behind 2nd base. Ozzie Albies probably should have taken it, but appeared to leave it for Inciarte. Neither he nor Swanson could get there quickly enough and the ball found grass.
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Now it’s 1st and 2nd – nobody out.
After a strike out (on a terrible at bat by Amed Rosario), a wild pitch moved up the runners for free. Now both are in scoring position with the tying run at second base as pinch runner Juan Lagares.
A groundout to short got the second out, but at the expense of a second run.
Then Jose Reyes banged a fly ball to deep left field. Ronald Acuna Jr was out there, but turned the wrong way at least twice, it seemed. Somehow he managed to get back to a spot deep enough and then got turned in the right direction to find the ball in the nick of time.
He made the catch. The Braves and Soroka win. Whew.
We’ll try this all again tomorrow evening: Sean newcomb and Jacob deGrom are the scheduled starters.