Atlanta Braves and Ronald Acuna, Jr. return home, win 5-4 over Nationals

Two is a streak. Braves defeated the Washington Nationals 5-4 to move their current win streak to two games. Hey, every little bit counts.

The Atlanta Braves were back at Truist Park for a four-game series against the pesky Washington Nationals. Thursday was dedicated to former Braves center fielder and brand new Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Andruw Jones. Along with bobble head night, Jones was paraded around the warning track in a convertible. The cheers for him before tonight’s game were as loud as they were in the former home of the Braves, Turner Field.

The night did not go much better after that. The evening’s starter, Grant Holmes, gave up three runs on three solo homes runs. Two of those round-trippers were to Nationals left fielder Daylen Liles during the second and fourth innings, respectfully. Holmes was pulled from the game in the fourth inning with two outs and a Washington runner on second and third base.

The Atlanta offense, only good for a single run on Wednesday during a 1-0 win over the Mets in New York on Wednesday night, didn’t wake up until the fifth inning. Mike Yastrzemski hit his seventh home run of the season, a two-run deal down the right field line, to tie the game at three.

Ronald Acuna, Jr. was back at Truist after another prolonged absence due to injury. During his second at-bat of the game in the fourth inning, Acuna hit a bomb to right-center field to give Atlanta its first run of the game. The Braves are clearly a much better team when Acuna is in the lineup, and he was already paying dividends in front of the home fans. In the sixth inning, facing Nationals starter Jake Irvin, Acuna’s presence forced him to pitch outside with Drake Baldwin on second base following a walk. Acuna forced a walk and having two runners on base and no outs moved Washington Nationals manager Blake Butera to take him out of the game after only 61 pitches.

That did not end up well for either Irvin or the Nationals as Ozzie Albies continued his stellar play this season and drove in two runs in the sixth inning to give Atlanta a 5-3 lead. Irvin, 2-4 overall with a plus-5 ERA, was charged with those two runs.

As is their habit against the Braves, the Nationals clawed back to make the game more interesting. Washington picked up another run to pull within a run at 5-4 after Luis Garcia hit a triple to deep center field off Victor Mederos in the seventh.

With the score 5-4 in favor of the home team, Braves closer Raisel Iglesias came into the game to finish things off. The three-out save was Iglesias’ 23rd of the season.

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