Braves at Red Sox series recap: Fireworks at Fenway for Atlanta

After a rare disappointing series (against the Washington Nationals, no less), the Atlanta Braves had no choice but to lick their wounds and keep it pushing against their traditional (league-mandated) interleague rivals in the form of the Boston Red Sox. Considering that the top of the rotation was going to be in action, there was at least some hope that this meant that the pitching could at least keep Boston quiet over the course of the three games at Fenway Park.

The big question was whether or not the Braves could get over the funk that their lineup was in. It’s one thing to only score one run over two games — both losses. It’s another to do so against a Nationals pitching staff that had performed very poorly up until that date. It was now time to see if that was just an inevitable blip that all teams will have to deal with over the course of a long baseball season or if the Braves had what it took to bust out and get back to smacking the ball all over the place. In the end, we got a mixture of results but one that ended up being an ultimately successful one for the Braves. Let’s get into it, y’all.

This one started very inauspiciously in the first inning for the Braves as they went down in order very quickly against Ranger Suárez while Spencer Strider gave up back-to-back homers to start things off. Atlanta would be forced to come from behind yet again and while it took a while for things to get really interesting as far as the Braves were concerned, the road team appeared to be up for the task of making it happen.

Suárez was seemingly cruising until the fifth inning, which is when he was suddenly jarred out of that false sense of security by Matt Olson hitting a lightning bolt of a two-run homer that tied things up. The Braves went on to run Suárez out of the game in the next frame, as an Austin Riley triple off of the Monster and an RBI ground rule double from Michael Harris II gave the Braves the lead and Suárez the hook. They made sure that it was a bad day for him after a productive out from Dominic Smith and an RBI single from Ronald Acuña Jr. gave the Braves some breathing room and put all five runs on Suárez’s line for the night.

The sixth inning was also the end of the line for Strider, as he eventually ended up with five innings pitched and three runs allowed after his leadoff walk in the sixth eventually made it home while he was in the dugout. From that point forward, things got topsy turvy to the point where the Braves were in clear survival mode once this game ended. Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a solo shot in the seventh inning to cut the deficit but Michael Harris II’s fourth hit of the night was a two-run dinger in the eighth that gave the Braves some vital insurance runs. They ended up needing those insurance runs because Raisel Iglesias had a rare rough outing where he got dinged for two runs while trying to close out the game. He eventually did so and the Braves escaped with a series-opening victory.

All due respect to the lovely TV production that BravesVision brings to us fans for nearly every game but also, you know it’s bad when C.J. Nitkowski catching a foul ball was the highlight of the night for the Braves.

For the second time in four games (and the third time in about a week-and-a-half), the Braves got shut out. A six-run fourth inning for the Red Sox (aided by two costly errors from Matt Olson and Chadwick Tromp) ended up being the turning point since Atlanta had little to offer against Connelly Early and Ryan Watson on the mound for the Red Sox. Boston added two more runs late and this ended up being a pretty lame one after the Braves went down in extremely short order following the big fourth inning for the Red Sox.

The pitching matchup between Chris Sale and Payton Tolle promised to be a good one and as it turned out, both pitchers kept their promise. While both pitchers “only” made it into the fifth inning in this one, Chris Sale got the slight edge as he ended up actually completing five innings while Tolle got pulled following 4.2 innings of work.

It came down to which team would be able to put in the work after the starting pitchers exited the game and boy, oh boy, the Braves certainly put in the work once Tolle was gone. The game turned Atlanta’s way in the sixth inning, which is when the Braves took the lead on a bases-loaded walk from Mike Yastrzemski and then broke the game wide open after Ronald Acuña Jr. hit his first dinger since April 24 (!!!) in grand fashion. Acuña’s grand slam put Atlanta up by five runs and thanks to the bullpen clamping down from that point forward, the Braves ended up cruising for the rest of the way.

Michael Harris II added another home run for good measure in the seventh inning to put a cap on a lovely series for Money Mike and then Ozzie Alies bopped one out in the ninth inning for two runs that pushed the Braves into double digits on the day. I’d say that avenging an eight-run loss with an eight-run win is a pretty solid way to clinch a series, right? Their 15th series win in 57 games, no less. Pretty good, huh!

For this to be a series win, there wasn’t really a ton of time where it felt comfortable for the Braves — or a least that’s how I felt watching this series. The only times I really felt completely relaxed while watching this series was after Raisel Iglesias got the final out of the first game and after Acuña’s grand slam in the series finale. Outside of that, Boston was tough to deal with and it’s hard to believe that they have such a poor record at Fenway Park.

Still, it speaks to the resiliency of this Atlanta squad that they were able to turn this into a series win. It got really hairy in that first game and the second game was tight for a bit as well but ultimately the Braves did themselves a lot of credit by proving themselves as the better team and taking the series.

Seeing Michael Harris II rake over the course of this three-game series was certainly encouraging and it was truly a sight for sore eyes to see Acuña send one flying over the Green Monster in order to put Atlanta well ahead in the rubber match. While it’s obvious that this lineup is missing Drake Baldwin a little bit, it sure would be nice to see the current face of the franchise start to get hot at the plate, himself. Hopefully this’ll be the start of seeing Acuña get on a heater, which is something that pretty much everybody across Braves Country would love to see. Jorge Mateo even did some serious work when he was called upon, so that was lovely to see in what ended up being a pretty positive series for the Braves.

Now, the focus turns to Cincinnati where the Braves will hopefully be able to keep things going in Cincinnati against the Reds. It’s always a bit concerning going into that ballpark with the bottom part of the rotation set to take on all the challenges that come along with playing against the Reds in that stadium. At the same time, the Reds have struggled against teams who are over .500 and the Braves lineup will also get to hopefully benefit from those dimensions as well. Hopefully we’ll continue to see the version of Atlanta’s lineup that did some serious work in the two wins in this series at Fenway Park rather than the one that has been intermittently showing up and getting shut out. We’ll see what happens.