Soroka and the Rude Boys blow away Marlins in 16-4 fireworks show
The Braves were very rude on Friday night. The Marlins came in with the best pitching performance in MLB for the month of June, but they will be ending the month a full 0.4 fWAR lower than where they started, with serious damage done to the lines of three of the four Miami pitchers that appeared in this game. Beyond that, though, the romp turned comical: the Braves hit so many homers in this one that the Friday night fireworks caused some sort of lighting issue that forced a long game delay in the seventh. Things then became absurd as the Braves hit another homer, and a bunch of smoke wafted over the field. In the end, it was a dominant-yet-silly 16-4 win, one in which Michael Soroka cruised through six innings despite allowing two homers on the night.
Let’s talk about the exploits of our rude boys, who made sure Bryan Hoeing’s pitching stats regressed quite nicely. Hoeing came in with a 2.31 ERA, 3.56 FIP, and 4.45. After tonight, he has a 3.72 ERA, 4.65 FIP, and 4.85 xFIP, as the Braves tagged him for three runs in 3 2⁄ 3 innings. Things got out of hand quickly.
In the first, Ronald Acuña Jr. reached on an infield single and scored on Austin Riley’s RBI double to center. Matt Olson then hit a two-run homer; a few minutes later, it was Eddie Rosario’s turn to crack a two-run shot of his own.
After the Marlins tried to make a game of it by scoring three runs in the top of the third (more on that later), the ruffians in their Friday reds rudely redoubled their efforts to make it a laugher. Riley immediately started the bottom of the third with a homer, hanging tough in a two-strike count and punishing a slider on the inner edge instead of protecting the plate. Olson then somehow hit a triple, the third of his career (and second of the season), and scored on Sean Murphy’s sacrifice fly.
In the fifth, with Hoeing long gone and replaced by Archie Bradley, Ozzie Albies doubled, Riley hit an RBI single, Olson cracked another two-run homer, Murphy singled, Marcell Ozuna hit a bonkers grounder that somehow bounced off shortstop Joey Wendle’s arm and skittered into right field, and Rosario had an RBI groundout.
In the sixth, Olson drove in Acuña after a hit-by-pitch with a single, and then Murphy hit a two-run homer of his own. And then in the seventh, it was Acuña’s turn to hit a two-run dinger, this time off Steven Okert. The Braves scored in all but three innings of this game, and hit six homers for the second time in a game this year. Their first-inning homers tied and then set the franchise record for homers in a calendar month, but then they also hit four more to boot. Again, I just want to point out the surreal nature of them hitting so many homers that lights malfunctioned and smoke ended up covering the field — as two separate events, no less.
The other notable part of this game was Michael Soroka’s first start in Atlanta in about three years, and this one went a lot better than his other outings. Soroka had a rough third, in which he hung a few secondaries and ended up giving up a massive two-run shot to Jesus Sanchez, and then a crush job to Jorge Soler, but otherwise cruised. He finished with a 7/0 K/BB ratio and made a key adjustment after the third, leveraging his four-seamer for whiffs. By pitching backwards and ramming two different types of fastballs to Marlins hitters, he got through the middle innings. By the time he used a slider to put away Garrett Cooper in the bottom of the sixth, the Marlins clearly didn’t know what they were looking for — not that it mattered, given the gigantic lead the Braves had rudely agglomerated at the time.
And so, the Braves didn’t even entertain the thought of a Marlins challenge to their catbird seat in the NL East tonight. They now have a seven-game lead and another six-game winning streak, wrapping up an absurd 21-4 June slate. They’ll get a chance for more shenanigans as the series continues tomorrow night. And hey, at this rate, you may not even need to go watch fireworks on Tuesday, because the Braves are providing plenty for your viewing pleasure pretty much every night.
Source: Battery Power
