Atlanta Braves Are Back At .500 As They Sweep Diamondbacks 7-1

Matt Kemp and Matt Adams powers the Atlanta Braves with homers as they sweep Diamondbacks with 7-1 win

The Atlanta Braves are starting the 2nd half of the season on fire!  After winning the 1st 2 games against Arizona 4-3 and 8-5 to take the series, Atlanta continued their offense to back up a strong performance by Jaime Garcia. The sweep against the NL Wild Card leader puts the Braves back at .500 with a 45-45 record.

Coming from the All-Star break, there were questions if the Braves could continue their strong push, especially facing a tough schedule. Well, they have answered those questions, at least for now, with a huge YES!

The Braves started their offense early against Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley, who had been their best (in terms of ERA) over his 11 starts.  Leading off in the 1st, Ender Inciarte singled to center to set up Brandon Phillips, who then doubled to deep center for the Braves’ first run of the day. What a series that these two have had against Arizona!?

An inning later, Matt Adams struck out but reached safely at 1st on a wild pitch that bounced away from the catcher. After Tyler Flowers moved him to 2nd on a grounder, Dansby Swanson hit an infield single to score Adams.

Matt & Matt’s Big Inning

Starting the bottom of the 3rd inning, Phillips hit another double, this time to deep left which was followed by a Freddie Freeman walk.

What happens next was just great. On the very first pitch, Matt Kemp launched one to left-center for a big 3 run home-run; Godley knew it too, yelling at himself as Kemp finished his swing.

Two at-bats later, up came Matt Adams. With a 1-2 count, Adams jacked one to right-center for a solo homer.

At this point, most managers would pull their pitcher out of the game, but Godley stayed in. Multiple factors were probably involved: it was a big 5-0 lead, Godley had friends and family at the game, and D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo wanted to Godley to eat some innings for bullpen.

Godley did just that, pitching 3 more innings and eventually striking out 9 batters.

Garcia had a fantastic day on the mound for the Braves, pitching 7 strong innings. He only allowed a run in the 4th after committing a throwing error to 1st base that turned a single into 2 bases. With David Peralta at 2nd, Paul Goldschmidt then singled him home.

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With how that inning played out after, if he didn’t commit the error and Peralta remained at 1st, there was the possibility no runs would’ve scored.

Garcia would end his day with 7 K’s and also got the win.

Inciarte hit a double of his own in the 4th and later moved to 3rd on a wild pitch. Another double from Phillips brought that run home giving Braves their 7-1 lead.

Good Pitching Quiets Offense

That would pretty much be it for both sides for the remainder of the game. Garcia pitched a few more innings for the Braves before handing it over to Luke Jackson and Akeel Morris.

The Braves infield flashed some nice plays throughout the game, including Freeman attempting a double-play turn at 2nd! The throw came in a bit late but the fact that Freeman made a play on 2nd base was pretty cool.

A fun game and overall a fun series for Atlanta. Their offense hasn’t shown signs of slowing down and should get better as Danny Santana (went 5-5 yesterday at Gwinnett!) and Sean Rodriguez maybe coming back soon.

The Braves win 3 games straight but so has the Nationals so it means they’ll have to continue pushing hard. They now host the Chicago Cubs for a 3 game series starting tomorrow.

Next: Who's Buying and Who's Selling?

Julio Teheran (7-6) takes the mound for the 1st game against Jon Lester (5-6). Game starts at 7:35 pm.