Time: 2:54
Attendance: 26,043
The home team heroes ended their 9-game losing streak in
fine fashion, notching only their second victory in the month of July. They
scored first for the first time in a week, putting up a 4-run bottom of the
second off the normally-impressive Atlanta rookie starting pitcher Spencer
Strider. Following a Josh Bell walk and two strikeouts, Austin Riley made a bad
throw on Maikel Franco’s grounder, leaving runners on second and third. The
light-hitting Ehire Adrianza singled them both home, and Victor Robles followed
with only his second homer of the year to double the lead. The team then notched
single insurance runs in the 4th, 6th, and 8th,
the latter on a long Juan Soto home run.
The Nats were forced to use a series of relief pitchers, as
Tuesday night’s rainout meant that Josiah Gray’s start was pushed back to Wednesday,
making him unavailable for Sunday’s game. That actually didn’t work out badly,
starting with three scoreless frames from Erasmo Ramirez. Jordan Weems was hit
hard in the 4th, recording only one out while giving up all three Braves
runs on a series of hard-hit balls. Steve Cishek came in to prevent further
damage and put up a zero the next inning as well. Carl Edwards Jr. fanned the
side in the 6th, but ran into trouble an inning later: bases loaded,
two outs, the dangerous Matt Olson up, and Nats-killer Riley looming on deck. After
running the count full, Edwards Jr. elicited a huge cheer from the Washington
segment of the crowd by inducing a soft grounder directly back to him. Andrés
Machado and Kyle Finnegan each recorded a 1-2-3 inning to finish off the win.
The weather again was hot (it IS July in Washington, after
all), and the afternoon’s humidity was oppressive, despite the cloudy skies. Traffic
continued to be light on the drive down. We made an 11:30 reservation at Walter’s,
and had a much happier experience than on our earlier
visit.
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