I mistakenly believed that the Braves had enough long balls to last them the entire season until Orlando Arcia added one more today, a well-hit drive to left center that, unsurprisingly, did not leave the park. Shortly after, Zack Gelof hit a no-doubter that did clear the fence, forcing the Braves to rally late with singleton runs in the seventh and eighth innings.
They managed to defeat the Oakland Athletics 3-1 with the help of a no-man’s-land flare and a ball that got through the infield.
On paper, this game appeared to be just another mismatch between flawlessly cromulent starter Charlie Morton and backend rotation specialist Luis Medina, who was playing for the first time in 2024.mistakenly believed that the Braves had enough long balls to last them the entire season until Orlando Arcia added one more today, a well-hit drive to left center that, unsurprisingly, did not leave the park. Shortly after, Zack Gelof hit a no-doubter that did clear the fence, forcing the Braves to rally late with singleton runs in the seventh and eighth innings.
They managed to defeat the Oakland Athletics 3-1 with the help of a no-man’s-land flare and a ball that got through the infield.
With a sharp curveball, Morton was able to strike out four batters in his first two innings of action, displaying dominance. A well-placed roller up the middle and a hit-by-pitch with the patented Charlie Morton Curveball Foot Clip put him in danger in the third inning, but he got out of it by using the tight curveball to strike out Abraham Toro again and then getting Miguel Andujar to ground out on a cutter.
In the fourth, whatever mojo Morton was channeling to carve through the Oakland lineup clearly waned. He couldn’t get JJ Bleday to wave at a curveball late in the count and ended up walking him, got a double play ball from Brent Rooker, and then walked Seth Brown on five pitches that missed their target pretty badly. Thankfully, Gelof hit a middle-middle cutter right to shortstop Orlando Arcia for a hard-hit third out. The fifth wasn’t much better, as it featured another five-pitch walk, but Morton was able to escape the threat and the looming specter of the third time through the order by picking off the runner at first after a strikeout.
By the time the sixth rolled around, rain was intermittently showering the field of play, and was affecting Morton perhaps more than anything else. After two outs, Morton issued back-to-back walks to Bleday and Rooker, but was able to finish up a scoreless outing thanks to a weak fly from Seth Brown.
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