It hasn’t happened all that often this season, but if you were looking for a flashback to the 2023 Braves offense, you definitely got it on Friday night, as the Braves creamed the Yankees by a final score of 8-1. They had a 2-0 lead two pitches into the game, and only added on from there, as Chris Sale cruised and the Braves reeled off a fourth straight victory.
After a first-pitch flare single by Jarred Kelenic to start the game, Ozzie Albies destroyed the very next pitch, an elevated fastball, into the left-field seats for a 2-0 lead. A few minutes later, it was Austin Riley’s turn to keep his string of great offensive results rolling, as he took a Carlos Rodon 3-1 get-me-over fastball and deposited it into right-center to give the Braves their third run of the frame.
Things just kept going from there. In the second, Adam Duvall and Ramon Laureano smashed liners to left to put runners on second and third with none out. Kelenic later blooped a ball to right to score Duvall. The third started with a single by Matt Olson and a walk to Riley; Laureano then blooped a ball into center for a hustle double that scored Olson. The fourth started with a barreled out by Kelenic, but unlike in other games, the Baseball Gods decide to make up for it almost immediately, as Albies snuck a double on a bouncer down the left-field line, and Olson then collected a homer on a not-particularly-well-hit liner to right. After Riley worked another walk, Sean Murphy followed Albies’ suit with another bouncer that went into the left-field corner, capping the scoring for the Braves at 8-1.
That was it for Rodon, who ended up with a very ghastly line of three homers allowed, to go with three strikeouts and two walks, in just 3 2⁄3 innings of work. I noted earlier that Rodon’s season was really benefiting from some HR/FB stuff that was potentially driven by how many soft fly outs he collected, but the Braves weren’t exactly in the soft flyouts business tonight, and after the three homers, Rodon’s FIP and xFIP are now off by just 0.01 — he came into the game with an FIP 0.22 lower than his xFIP.
For the Yankees, a small measure of salvation was provided by Yoendrys Gomez, who was recalled from Triple-A ahead of this game. Gomez ended up throwing 78 pitches across 4 2⁄3 scoreless innings, in which he managed a 5/3 K/BB ratio. He actually benefited from two barreled Braves outs (Kelenic, again, and Riley). but gave the Yankees what Rodon couldn’t: some bullpen relief, in what has turned out to be two consecutive drubbings for the Bombers.
On the pitching end, well, Chris Sale and the Braves rolled. Or sailed. Or... aviated? Soared? You get the idea. Sale started his night with a walk, but then struck out the mighty twosome of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, before Sean Murphy threw out the runner attempting to steal while Sale had an 0-2 count on Giancarlo Stanton. To start the bottom of the second, Sale struck out Stanton looking. The only blemish against Sale in the box score ended up being a “triple” by Jahmai Jones that was misplayed by Duvall, followed by an RBI groundout from DJ LeMahieu. That was actually the first time Sale had retired LeMahieu in their last seven meetings, and it was the only run the Yankees would push across on the night.
After that, Sale’s night was pretty uneventful. He again struck out Soto and Judge in the fourth, as those two combined for four of his eight punchouts on the night. Sale issued back-to-back walks to start the fifth, which was kind of a weird thing to see from a guy who doesn’t even walk guys when the game is close, but then went strikeout-flyout-strikeout to end his night by completing that fifth frame.
Daysbel Hernandez, Jesse Chavez, Dylan Lee, and Grant Holmes finished off the game by facing the minimum over the remaining four innings. Chavez and Holmes both allowed singles (one a 117 mph screamer off the bat of Stanton), but erased them on double plays balls, with Holmes getting Judge to hit into a 4-6-3 to end the game.
The box score in this one ended up beautiful for the Braves and really putrid for the Yankees. Six Braves had multihit games, and things would’ve looked even more garish had Kelenic’s two deep barrels to center not died so the other barrels could live. While Orlando Arcia going 0-for-4 with a hit by pitch is par for the course at this point, what is perhaps far more surprising is that Marcell Ozuna went 0-for-4 with a walk while his teammates frolicked.
Meanwhile, Soto and Judge combined to go 0-for-8 with five strikeouts, while the Yankees collected just six baserunners, one extra-base hit that was just a defensive misplay in the outfield, and no balls aside from that misplayed fly that went further than 355 feet.
The Braves will now have two chances to win the series over the weekend, but they’ll also have an opportunity to run their winning streak to five games tomorrow. Oh, and the Phillies lost to the Diamondbacks, so the division deficit is down to six games. Are the Braves, injury-riddled as they are, returning to something resembling preseason expectations? Stay tuned and find out.
