Today’s recap is going to be a short and sweet, as this game was light on action and light on Braves’ roster candidates, as Jose Suarez got the start, to be followed by JR Ritchie.
Suarez looked pretty good by his standards, striking out 3, walking 2, and accruing 10 whiffs over 4.0+ scoreless innings and 61 pitches thrown. He allowed 4 batted balls over 95 MPH, two of which were ground balls. Overall a strong outing for Jose. Joel Payamps took over for Jose in the fifth after Jose gave up a leadoff single. After a bunt hit and a soft flyout, Payamps stuck out Marsh and Bohm to end the inning.
JR Ritchie entered the game in the sixth and hit Adolis Garcia to start his outing. Ritchie settled in after that, inducing a soft flyout and striking out two, ending the inning. He carried that momentum into the second inning, striking out the first two batters and ending the inning with a Trea Turner pop-out. It was more of the same for the last two innings, as Ritchie ended his outing with 4.0 no-hit innings with 6 strikeouts and just the one HBP as the lone baserunner, needing 52 pitches to get the job done. He worked with a large pitch mix, as is his norm and did so to devastating effect. That’s a really impressive outing for the Opening Day roster candidate and top prospect.
On the offensive side, the Braves’ quad-A lineup squandered a leadoff triple in the first and scattered a few baserunners but didn’t put up any runs against the Philly starter, Walker…or first reliever in Alvarado…or any other Philly pitcher until Tyler Tolve launched a solo homer in the ninth inning. Brett Wisely and Luke Williams each had two-hit days, which were also the only Braves hits outside of the Tolve homer. Luis Guanipa got a plate appearance in the ninth and struck out.
Join us again tomorrow as the Braves take on the Rays at 1:05 PM ET.
