Game Recap: Rosario’s homer; Morton’s 10 strikeouts fuel Braves sweep over Yankees

Not many nights are you going to emerge victorious when you total just three hits in a game. That was the case for this potent Atlanta Braves lineup, as Rosario’s two-run homer was the only runs scored on the night.

Rosario’s homer was enough to support Charlie Morton’s dominant outing and more great relief work from the Braves bullpen. The Yankees actually outhit the Braves four to three on the night, but once again failed to have a runner cross the plate.

Tonight’s 2–0 victory made it back to back shutouts for the Braves as their pitching continued to carve up a struggling Yankees lineup.

Game Summary

Fans were hopeful for a rebound performance from Charlie Morton, who was coming off a career high seven walk start against the Mets. The first batter he faced saw yet another full count, and DJ LeMahieu blooped the 3-2 pitch to centerfield to start the game with a single. Thankfully, nothing came of that and Charlie got the next three guys in order (including a strikeout of Aaron Judge).

Rookie Randy Vasquez had an impressive first inning against the Braves powerful bats. Despite two-out walk to Austin Riley, Vasquez had everything else working including a breaking ball that had a lot of bite to it. Vasquez struck out two MVP candidates in Acuna Jr. and Matt Olson in his first inning of work.

Morton worked a quick and impressive top of the second, and picked up two swinging strikeouts in the process. Marcell Ozuna started the bottom half of the inning by extending his hit streak to 14 games with an opposite field double.

Super Eddie Rosario then hammered the first pitch he saw over the left-centerfield wall for an oppo taco homer and gave the Braves a 2-0 lead.

Charlie had an ultra impressive top of the third inning in which he sat the Yankees down in order. He was getting ahead in the count and his curveball had some serious movement on it. The result was nine straight hitters retired since LeMahieu started the ballgame with a hit.

Morton finally allowed another baserunner with one out in the fourth, after Aaron Judge lined a single to right. He then issued his first walk to Stanton to put multiple runners on. Morton worked around the right guys though, and bounced back with strikeouts of IKF and Billy McKinney to end the inning.

Vasquez started to lose his control in the bottom of the fourth as he issued back to back one out walks to Ozuna and Rosario. Those walks ended the night for Vasquez who was pulled at 60 pitches.

So if the Yankees wanted to end this losing streak, manager Aaron Boone was going to rely on their deep and dominant bullpen. Michael King was the first to be called upon and quickly rewarded his manager by striking out d’Arnaud and getting a groundout from Arcia to end the fourth.

Chalie continued to cruise in the fifth and sixth inning. The latter was punctuated with three emphatic strikeouts of the heart of the Yankees order. Unfortunately, Michael King kept on dominating as he pitched a scoreless fifth and sixth inning himself.

Pierce Johnson was the first out the bullpen for Brian Snitker. Johnson has quickly worked himself into a trusted reliever since coming over from Colorado. His slider is a dominant pitch and he leaned on it heavily again tonight in his 1-2-3 top of the seventh.

Even with King at 34 pitches, Boone sent him back out for the bottom half of the seventh. To King’s credit he continued to throw filth and worked another scoreless inning in relief.

Kirby Yates was on for the eighth inning and continued the great Braves pitching on the night. He worked a 1-2-3 inning that ended by striking out Gleyber Torres looking on a perfectly placed fastball. This lowered Yates season ERA to 2.87.

Closer Raisel Iglesias was on for his 23rd save of the season and started things off with a strikeout of Aaron Judge. A couple groundouts later and the Braves had their league leading 78th win of the season.