The Braves got everything they could have asked for from Tyler Mahle’s Atlanta debut and Max Fried’s first outing against his former club. What they didn’t get was a finish.
Friday night’s opener against the Yankees turned into a bullpen game after both starters carved through six-plus scoreless innings, but Atlanta’s 2-0 lead disappeared in the final inning of regulation and the Braves fell 3-2 in 10 innings, snapping their eight-game winning streak.
Mahle, the right-hander acquired at the trade deadline, looked right at home in his first start for Atlanta. He worked six scoreless innings on 92 pitches, allowing three hits and two walks while matching his season high with nine strikeouts.
It was the most strikeouts by a Braves pitcher making his debut in franchise history over six-plus scoreless innings. Mahle’s fastball reached 96 mph, and his splitter drew ugly swings as it tumbled beneath the zone.
He only had to navigate real trouble twice, and both times he handled it cleanly. In the fourth, after a leadoff double by former teammate Heliot Ramos, Mahle got the next two hitters to pop out before Dubón made a leaping catch at the wall to end the inning. In the fifth, Ryan McMahon doubled with one out, but Mahle retired the next two batters and never allowed a runner to reach third during his six innings.
Fried was sharp too after a shaky start, settling in and retiring the final 12 hitters he faced. He finished with 6 1/3 scoreless innings, giving up three hits and two walks while striking out seven.
Atlanta’s offense gave Mahle some support in the late innings. Austin Riley broke through with a solo homer in the eighth, and Matt Olson added another in the ninth, his 33rd of the season. Olson has now gone deep in back-to-back games, with five homers in his last seven, and sits two behind major league leader Yordan Alvarez.
But the game turned on Atlanta’s collapse in the ninth. Raisel Iglesias brought a 2-0 lead into the inning, then lost it after an error on an infield chopper and RBI doubles from Austin Wells and Ben Rice. Iglesias blew just his third save in 27 chances this season.
Dylan Dodd entered with the bases loaded after a hit by pitch and got a groundout to second to push the game to extras. Atlanta then came up empty in the 10th when Luis Garcia Jr. tracked down a blooper to shallow right. The Yankees loaded the bases with one out after an intentional walk and an unintentional walk off Tyler Kinley (6-5), then won it on Ryan McMahon’s sacrifice fly to right.
The loss also made a costly first-inning baserunning mistake loom even larger. After a one-out single by Drake Baldwin and a walk to Albies, Mauricio Dubón lined a single into left-center. Baldwin would have scored easily, but Albies tried to go first to third and was tagged out just before Baldwin crossed the plate, wiping out what should have been a bigger inning.
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