A night after letting another win slip through their fingers, the Atlanta Braves battled back to even the series in Seattle against the Mariners with a 3-2 victory on Tuesday.
In the top of the ninth, Matt Olson launched a solo homer off Mariners closer Andrés Munoz to give the Braves a 3-2 lead. Olson barreled the ball to center field, which kept cutting towards the left-center gap and cleared the fence. It was career homer No. 301 for Olson, who currently leads Major League Baseball in WAR. It ticked up a few more notches on Tuesday night.
Offense was tough to come by for the better part of eight innings for the Braves, who seldom had much action on the bases against Seattle righty George Kirby. The lone rally came in the fourth inning — just moments after Seattle had taken a 2-0 lead — as Mauricio Dubon poked a ball down the right field line to score two runners. Dubon’s double and Olson’s homer were the lone extra base hits for Atlanta on Tuesday night.
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Bryce Elder was, once again, fantastic for six innings. He struck out nine Mariners and generated 17 whiffs over 93 pitches. His lone mistake was a middle-middle fastball to JP Crawford that was crushed about 15 rows deep to the right field seats, but he was excellent otherwise. Through eight starts this season, Elder owns a stellar 2.02 ERA, 3.20 FIP and 3.83 xFIP. For a pitching staff with a lot of injuries and question marks, Elder has been a pillar of consistency through the first quarter of the season.
In relief of Elder, the vaunted trio of Dylan Lee, Robert Suarez and freshly off the injured list Raisel Iglesias was nearly perfect. They recorded seven strikeouts across three innings, allowed just one soft single in the ninth to Josh Naylor.
The series will wrap up on Wednesday afternoon, and as of this writing, it seems Martin Perez may make the start in place of Grant Holmes. Whoever starts for the Braves will be opposed by righty Bryan Woo, who has pitched well the previous few years but is coming off two brutal starts in which he surrendered 13 runs across nine innings. First pitch is a much earlier 4:10 p.m. ET.
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