The Braves needed Tyler Mahle to steady them, and for a while he did just enough. The problem was what happened around him early and what didn’t happen for Atlanta’s offense afterward.
Minnesota jumped on Mahle in the first inning with two loud swings. There were five batted balls over 100 MPH across both teams in that opening frame, and two of the three against Mahle turned into runs - a hard Jeffers double and a mammoth Bell homer.
From there, Mahle wasn’t missing a ton of bats, but he kept the damage contained and worked efficiently. He got through 6.2 innings on just 76 pitches, holding the Twins to those two runs with a little help from Dylan Dodd, who helped strand a runner in the seventh.
The final line wasn’t as sharp as Mahle’s previous two outings. He had only three strikeouts and eight whiffs, both well below where he’d been lately, but he still gave Atlanta a chance.
The lineup didn’t do much with it. The Braves spent most of the night with very few baserunners before Drake Baldwin finally cracked the shutout with a homer in the sixth. Harris and Albies followed with two-out singles in that inning, but Atlanta couldn’t cash in before Minnesota turned to its bullpen.
That was as close as the Braves got. They were shut down in the seventh and eighth, and the game slipped further away in the eighth when Didier Fuentes came in with a runner on first. Fuentes left a couple pitches in the middle of the plate, and the Twins made him pay with a single and a double to add two insurance runs and stretch the lead to 4-1.
Michael Harris opened the ninth with a double, but the Braves couldn’t build anything else from it.
It’s another night in a stretch where the offense just hasn’t been enough. Outside of Matt Olson, Atlanta’s hitters aren’t producing at the level they need to, and the club is simply not playing well right now. The early-season cushion is still there, but the next run of games could shrink it fast if this doesn’t turn around.
The Braves will try again tomorrow at 1:40 PM ET, opening a stretch of four straight day games while looking to salvage the series.
In Other News...
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Now the early returns in New York have brought that risk back into focus. Fried has been sidelined again by elbow trouble, a development that feels uncomfortably familiar to anyone who watched his Braves tenure closely, because arm issues and Tommy John surgery were already part of his history. It is the sort of reminder Atlanta cant help but notice, especially with the decision not to match New Yorks offer looking a little more understandable in hindsight. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Send A Clear Message With Latest Catching Move
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Robinson was released by the Dodgers about a week earlier, and Atlanta already had a prior connection to him after claiming him off waivers last September. His big-league time has been brief, but the Braves clearly see value in the broader package, the kind of depth move that can matter over a long season even if the offensive numbers never jump off the page. [Read more 🡒]