Braves Recap: Ronald Acuña Jr. powers Braves to their seventh straight victory

The Atlanta Braves continue to take care of business against the Washington Nationals. Today’s 6-4 victory pushed their current winning streak to seven games and brought Atlanta’s record to 40-24 on the season. The Braves had just six hits on the day, but Ronald Acuña Jr. accounted for half of them on his big day, as he went 3-4 with a home run and three runs driven in.

Lane Thomas started the game off with a triple just out of the reach of Acuña Jr. Washington then took a 1-0 lead as the next batter Luis Garcia got Thomas home on a sacrifice fly. The Braves didn’t take long to answer as Ronald Acuña Jr. got the bottom half of the first started with a double. Two deep fly balls later and we had a tie game as the latter was a sac fly from Austin Riley.

The Braves second inning was a lot of fun and it started with a bang as Marcell Ozuna homered into the left field seats to give a Braves a 3-1 lead. Atlanta decided they weren’t satisfied with just one lone two-run homer as Ronald lined another two-run shot over the right field wall and the Braves grabbed a 5-1 lead after just two innings of play.

Mackenzie Gore was able to settle in after the poor first couple innings as the next couple innings went scoreless. Unfortunately in the fifth inning Lane Thomas struck once again, this time producing a two run double that came with two outs to cut the Braves lead in half. Shuster’s night came to an end when he allowed the first two batters in the sixth to reach. It wasn’t an exactly dominate performance from Shuster, in fact he was able to produce just four swings and misses from Washington. Shuster’s final line was 5 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, with ZERO walks and strikeouts.

Luckily the Braves have the greatest pitcher to ever live in Jesse Chavez, who was called upon to extinguish the fire. You would’ve thought it was just spring training work for Jesse despite coming into a two run game with two runners on and nobody out. He really makes it look so effortless as he proceeded to go strikeout, strikeout, groundout and put an end to the threat and keep the score 5-3.

The Chavez magic didn’t stop there as he came back out for the seventh inning. He then went 1-2-3 with a strikeout of Lane Thomas to end his afternoon. Jesse Chavez now owns a 1.55 ERA, which is in the top 20 among qualified relievers.

Ronald Acuña Jr. continued his spectacular day as he doubled home Kevin Pillar to extend the Braves lead to 6-3. One rather interesting development from this game was Joe Jimenez pitching in the eighth. It hasn’t been often that Jimenez has been called to action with the Braves leading, but with his recent good work you can certainly understand why he was afforded the opportunity. Thankfully, he made Snit look good as he set down the Nats in order.

With Raisel Iglesias’ recent heavy workload the Braves brought on A.J. Minter for the save opportunity this afternoon. Despite a Stone Garrett solo homer to lead things off, Minter was able to shut the door and close out a 6-4 victory.