The Braves are one win away.
That’s the headline after a 6-3 comeback in Houston on Saturday night, a victory that gave Atlanta the series and moved the club to within a game of wrapping up the NL East. The big swing came from Ronald Acuña Jr., who turned a tense seventh inning into a grand slam party and flipped the game on its head.
Atlanta opened with the kind of first inning that has haunted it at times this season: Drake Baldwin ripped a leadoff double, Ronald Acuña Jr. walked, and then the next three batters went quietly. Houston answered right away when Isaac Paredes hammered a solo shot off Grant Holmes for a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the frame.
The Astros kept nudging ahead. Jeremy Peña opened the third with a triple, and Paredes followed with an RBI single to make it 2-0.
Hayden Wesneski settled in after that, using his six-pitch mix to keep the Braves quiet through most of the first five innings. Atlanta finally cracked the door in the sixth.
Baldwin punched a broken-bat single into play, Acuña walked again, and Matt Olson delivered a sharp single to center to bring Baldwin home. Acuña was thrown out trying to take third on the play, but the Braves had cut it to 2-1.
Wesneski exited after 5.1 innings, charged with four hits, one earned run, three walks, and three strikeouts. Holmes, meanwhile, put together another quality start despite the traffic Houston created against him, finishing six innings with eight hits, two earned runs, no walks, and four strikeouts on 87 pitches.
The game turned in the seventh, and it started with the bottom of the Braves’ order. Michael Yastrzemski and Austin Riley singled, Sean Murphy walked, and suddenly Atlanta had the bases loaded with one out.
Bryan Abreu came in and struck out Baldwin, but Acuña wasn’t done. On Abreu’s second pitch, he sent a grand slam out to give the Braves a 5-2 lead.
Acuña finished the night with two hits and two walks, and the grand slam was the kind of swing that erased everything that came before it.
Atlanta added another run in the eighth when Yastrzemski, who helped start the seventh-inning rally, went deep to left-center to make it 6-2.
Houston made one last push in the bottom of the eighth. Dylan Lee retired the first two hitters before Paredes walked and Jose Altuve dropped in a bunt single.
Yainer Diaz then doubled in a run to trim the margin to 6-3. Nelson Velázquez came up as the tying run, but Lee punched him out on five pitches.
Raisel Iglesias handled the ninth for his second straight night and finished off a clean 1-2-3 inning.
The Braves are now 91-64 and will go for the sweep Sunday afternoon at 2:10 pm ET. There’s also Mets/Phillies at 1:10 pm ET, which means the math around the division could get very interesting very quickly.
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