The Braves headed to Fenway Park on Tuesday hoping to avoid a three-game losing streak for the first time all season. However, the night couldn’t have started worse, as it took just five pitches for the Red Sox to blast back-to-back home runs off Spencer Strider.
Strider settled in from there, as both sides traded zeroes until the top of the fifth, when Matt Olson launched a two-run home run well over the right field wall — his first since May 10th. The Braves added three more in the following inning on a triple from Austin Riley, a double from Michael Harris II, and a much-needed single from Ronald Acuña Jr.
Strider came back out for the bottom half of the inning, but after walking the leadoff batter, Walt Weiss turned to Didier Fuentes — and that’s where things got rocky again. A single and a walk loaded the bases with nobody out, but a double play limited the damage to one run.
That became the theme of the night. The Braves’ normally unhittable high-leverage arms were gutting through innings to protect a lead that kept shrinking. In the seventh it was Dylan Lee‘s turn, and he surrendered a home run that cut the deficit to one.
Michael Harris II had an answer, though. In the top of the eighth, he took a pitch well out of the zone and drove it 430 feet to dead center, putting two more on the board. It was Harris’ fourth hit of the night, pushing his average over .300 to go along with 12 home runs and 2.1 WAR on the season. He’s likely headed to his first All-Star Game after posting just 2.2 WAR across 160 games all of last year.
The job wasn’t finished, though. After a scoreless inning from Robert Suarez, Raisel Iglesias got the ball in the ninth. He entered the game having not allowed a run in 28.2 consecutive innings — a streak that dated back to last August. That streak is now over.
A couple of seeing-eye singles put runners at second and third with nobody out. A strikeout followed by another single cut the lead to one and put the tying run on base. Yet another single then put the Braves one mistake away from disaster.
This is when it pays to have an elite closer.
Even with everything unraveling, the job is simple — get the last three outs with the lead intact. Iglesias did exactly that, forcing two straight groundouts to end the Braves skid, if you can even call it that, at two games.
Atlanta hasn’t played its best baseball over the last week. They dropped their second series of the season this past weekend and are clearly feeling the effects of not having a legitimate MVP candidate in the lineup since Drake Baldwin went down with an oblique injury. But any complaining at this point is just the result of being spoiled rotten. This offense is still loaded with stars that can win games on their own — on Tuesday it was Michael Harris, and on Wednesday it will likely be somebody else entirely.
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(Photo by Chris Arjoon/Icon Sportswire)