The Atlanta Braves came out swinging against Braxton Ashcraft, and the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander was hit like never before.
The Braves recorded nine hard-hit balls, including seven with exit velocities of 100 mph or higher, as Ashcraft gave up a career-high nine hits and tied his career most by allowing six earned runs in five innings Saturday afternoon at Truist Park.
It was the one that wasn’t hit hard that did the most damage.
Dominic Smith hit a two-run homer to left field in the fifth inning to provide a three-run cushion that boosted the Braves to a 6-3 win over the Pirates.
“Just very poor execution, especially with two strikes,” Ashcraft said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I didn’t have my best stuff today. I wasn’t able to really spin the ball in the zone for swing and miss — and that’s a lot of what I feel like I do well. It just boils down to two-strike execution and execution in general.”
Atlanta (44-21), which has the best record in baseball, can clinch a sweep Sunday afternoon when Bubba Chandler faces Bryce Elder in the three-game series finale.
The Pirates (34-31) had what Pirates manager Don Kelly called a “scary moment” in the ninth inning, when second baseman Brandon Lowe fouled a 1-1 pitch from Raisel Iglesias off his right knee. Lowe buckled to the ground and was removed from the game with the assistance of associate head athletic trainer Joel Harris. Kelly said he was “hoping for the best.”
Ashcraft (5-3) had five strikeouts without a walk on 86 pitches (61 strikes) but drew only seven whiffs on 45 swings. It was his worst start since Ashcraft gave up six runs in 41⁄3 innings in an 11-7 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on April 28. He surrendered eight hits in a 2-1 loss at the Cincinnati Reds on Sept. 25 of last season.
Ashcraft leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball, throwing it 35 times compared to 17 curveballs, 16 sliders and 14 sinkers against a Braves team that entered with a 20.5% strikeout rate that ranked fifth in MLB.
“With that, you know guys are going to be aggressive swinging the bat,” Ashcraft said. “It just boils down to changing eye levels. It doesn’t matter what team we’re playing or what their lineup says on paper. It’s still kind of a cat-and-mouse game, being able to keep guys off balance. That starts with being able to offer four or five pitches in the zone or whatever you need to. I didn’t land the curveball very often. The slider wasn’t competitive. I was just kind of pitching with fastballs today, and you can’t do that against a lineup that really hits fastballs well.”
The Braves started fast, scoring two runs on four hits in the first inning. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Mauricio Dubon — who both went 2 for 4 — hit back-to-back singles to center, with Acuna scoring on an Ozzie Albies line drive to center for a sacrifice fly. Austin Riley doubled to left to drive in Dubon for a 2-0 lead. It marked the first time in 21 career starts that Ashcraft allowed runs in the first inning.
Ashcraft responded to his 26-pitch first by retiring the Braves on four pitches in the second inning. But Dubon led off the third with a single, and Ashcraft hit Albies with a pitch on the left ankle. Dubon advanced to third on Smith’s deep fly to the warning track in center, then scored when catcher Endy Rodriguez made an errant throw as Albies stole second base.
The Pirates answered when Bryan Reynolds led off the fourth with a double to center off Spencer Strider and scored on a one-out double to left by Nick Gonzales to cut it to 3-1. After Oneil Cruz drew a full-count walk, Rodriguez went down swinging. But Tyler Callihan hit a line drive to the right-field corner for a double that drove in Gonzales. Cruz tried to score, but Acuna hit first baseman Matt Olson for a perfect relay throw to catcher Austin Wynns, who tagged Cruz out at home plate.
The Pirates tied it in the fifth with some small ball. Jared Triolo hit a leadoff single, advanced to second on a wild pitch by Strider, reached third on Spencer Horwitz’s groundout to first and scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Lowe to make it 3-3.
But the Braves continued to hit Ashcraft hard. Acuna and Olson singled, then executed a double steal to move into scoring position. Acuna scored on an Albies sacrifice fly to right for a 4-3 lead, then Smith sent an elevated 1-0 fastball 351 feet down the left-field line — at a 93.4 mph exit velocity — for his sixth home run to make it 6-3.
“I thought the stuff was good. They strung together in the first, third and fifth, some good at-bats off of him, and Dom Smith got that one up, was able to lift it up down the line to left,” Kelly said. “It looked like he had decent stuff. Maybe execution (was) not where we’ve seen it in recent starts for him. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t hold them down today.”
The Pirates put a pair of runners on against Tyler Kinney in the eighth, when Ryan O’Hearn singled to right and Gonzales reached on a grounder to short. Cruz, who had drawn three walks, worked a full count but couldn’t check his swing in chasing a slider beneath the strike zone for a strikeout. Rodriguez popped up to center to end the rally.
“When we’ve hit these stretches throughout the course of the season, we always talk about the big hit and getting runners in scoring position. It’s the lack of the big hit that we need,” Kelly said. “When we’ve had the really good games and kept the line moving, stacked the at-bats together, we come up with that big hit. These first two games, we’ve had chances later in the game. They do have a good bullpen, some good arms out there. We’ve been able to get some guys on base. We just haven’t been able to get that big hit.”
Jake Mangum came up with a pinch-hit single in the ninth, only for Lowe to get injured when he fouled the 1-1 pitch off his knee. He was replaced by Jhostynxon Garcia, who struck out to end the game.
It was a loss for which Ashcraft took blame but wasn’t rattled.
“I think it’s just one of those days,” Ashcraft said. “I don’t think one outing, one start, one inning is worthy of going back to the drawing board and reinventing yourself. I still have a lot of confidence in what I do and how well I do it.”