Braves Recap: Travis d’Arnaud launches two homers in Braves win over the Rockies

The Atlanta Braves cruised to an 8-1 win over the Colorado Rockies to bring their June record to 11-3. The offense hit three separate two-run homers, two of which came courtesy of Travis d’Arnaud. They are now 18 games over .500.

Jared Shuster had a good start to the game as he struck out the first batter he faced, after going his previous two starts with one strikeout in just over ten innings. That followed with a d’Arnaud caught stealing (just his second on the year) and a long fly out to Michael Harris II.

The bottom half of the first inning saw Ronald Acuña Jr. draw a lead off walk, and swipe his 30th stolen base of the year. After a productive out from the new two hole hitter, Ozzie Albies, the Braves would take the lead when Ronald scooted home on a Lamet wild pitch.

After Austin Riley walked, Travis d’Arnaud stepped up and hit his 100th career home run. It also happened to be the longest home run of d’Arnaud’s career, at 474 ft. Marcell Ozuna then had a long fly out to center that ended the inning, and the Braves had a 3-0 lead after one inning thanks while tallying just one hit.

The next two innings looked to be heading toward an uneventful pace, that is until the man of the night stepped up. Travis d’Arnaud once again followed an Austin Riley walk with a mammoth two-run homer, and stretched Atlanta’s lead to 5-0 after three innings of play.

The top of the fourth inning ended with a bit of flare when Matt Olson threw out Nolan Jones from foul territory as Jones tried to stretch a single into a double.

The Braves continued to implement one of the strongest strategies I’ve seen for winning baseball games, that being draw a walk then hit a two run bomb. This time Lamet walked Ozuna, then proceeded to give up the homer to Eddie Rosario.

The Braves would add one more run in the fourth when Arcia scored on Ronnie's GIDP. Dinelson Lamet’s night would end there after four innings and eight earned runs allowed. His ERA actually jumped from the 10.38 ERA mark he had to 11.57 ERA after this outing.

Jared Shuster was pitching like a man with a big lead for most of his night. Although, he ran into trouble during the sixth inning when the Rockies finally broke into the run column on a fielders choice with the bases loaded. Kirby Yates then entered the game and struck out Alfaro to maintain a 8-1 Braves advantage.

Shuster’s final line was 5.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, and 2 Ks. Once again he walked more than he struck out so we aren’t exactly looking at a template for success here. However, while the rotation is banged up the Braves are just going to take the money and run with Shuster’s performances.

Oddly enough the Braves and Rockies each had six hits after seven innings of play despite it being a seven run differential. The disparity in walks and home runs obviously had a lot to do with that.

Ben Heller made his Braves debut in the eighth inning and it was his first big league appearance since 2020 with the Yankees. He did give up a single and a walk in the inning, but he collected three strikeouts as well and his sinker topped out at 97 along with a breaking ball that had a ton of sweep to it. I’m definitely interested in seeing more from him.

Heller knotched two more strikeouts in the ninth in a 1-2-3 inning and polished off the 8-1 victory. Atlanta will look to continue their June winning ways tomorrow afternoon behind Bryce Elder.