Atlanta Braves Break Out the Brooms Versus Washington Nationals

The Atlanta Braves continued their winning ways on Sunday by holding off a pesky Washington Nationals team.

Roughly two and a half weeks ago, there was an important decision facing the front office of the Atlanta Braves.  Should the team buy or sell at the trade deadline?

With Ronald Acuna and Marcell Ozuna lost for the remainder of the year and the team scuffling for the first 100 games of the season, Alex Anthopoulos and the front office very easily could have made the decision to sell off some veteran parts of this team and look to get back on track in the 2022 season.

Instead, AA made the decision to try to solidify the weak links of the 2021 Atlanta Braves chain, making deals to solidify the back end of the bullpen and attempting to replace some of the offensive firepower in the outfield that has been missing since Ozuna and Acuna have been out.

The results have been nothing short of staggering.

The Atlanta Braves are in first place — by themselves.

On Sunday, the Braves improved to 11-3 since July 31st, claiming sole possession of first place in the NL East for the first time this season thanks to the combination of a 6-5 win and a loss by the Phillies at the hands of the Reds.

Even though the Braves were able to complete the sweep of the Nationals on Sunday, it did not come easy.

The Braves built a pair of three-run leads throughout Sunday’s game.  They did so on the back of strong offensive performances from Austin Riley and Dansby Swanson.  The Braves 4- and 5-hole hitters went a combined 5-for-10 with 2 home runs, 3 RBIs, and 4 runs scored.

In spite of the good work by the offense, Atlanta found themselves clinging to just a single-run lead entering the bottom of the ninth with Will Smith coming on to try to close out the game.

Smith was both shaky and nasty at times in his inning of work (again).  After making quick work of Victor Robles, Smith struggled to locate pitches to Lane Thomas, a career .183 hitter with 126 major league at-bats, walking him on five pitches.

This brought up Juan Soto with a chance to win the game in a walk-off fashion for the Nationals.

However, Smith rose to the challenge against Soto, throwing three perfectly located sliders.  Washington’s young star was rung up looking to put the Braves one out away from the series sweep.

Smith then seemingly pitched around Josh Bell to bring up Carter Kieboom, but in doing so he allowed Lane Thomas to move to second base and into scoring position with the potential tying run.

After fouling off the first pitch, Kieboom hit a 102.5 mph rocket down the third baseline that looked like a sure double, but Austin Riley made a fantastic play to glove the ball and throw a strike to Freddie Freeman at first to end the game.

And with that, the Braves swept the Nationals and improved to 8-1 in Nationals Park in the 2021 season.

The Atlanta Braves’ offense continues to shine during their recent surge.

While Max Fried and Charlie Morton put forth very good pitching performances in this series, the Braves bats were definitely the difference.

The Braves offense hit eleven home runs (four by Dansby Swanson) and put up twenty-two runs in three games against the Nationals.

While it is true that the Nationals don’t have near the level of talent on their roster right now as they did three weeks ago, they still put a team of players on the field that are hungry to earn a spot on next year’s club, so this definitely could have been a bit of a trap series for the Braves.

But the Braves went into Washington DC and did exactly what they were supposed to do.  They swept a team that they should have swept, improving to a season-best six games over .500.

The Braves will hit their second stop of this nine-game road trip as they start a three-game series in Miami on Monday night against the Marlins, who will be looking for their fifth win in a row.