Coming off a six-run ninth inning in Saturday night's 13-5 win over the Cardinals, the Braves continued their offensive surge by piling up six early runs against Adam Wainwright on their way to an easy 6-3 victory on Sunday afternoon.
After being shut out in game one of the series on Friday night, the Braves exploded for 19 runs and 26 hits in games two and three, securing their first series win in St. Louis since 2012 -- Livan Hernandez, Brandon Beachy, and Tommy Hanson were credited wins in that series.
Mike Foltynewicz received the win in his outing to move to an even 5-5 on the season. After having some control issues in his past four starts, Foltynewicz was in much better control in his six innings of work against the Cardinals. He finished the start allowing only one run on six hits and two walks while striking out four. He threw 105 pitches in the game, 66 of them being strikes.
Wainwright finished on the losing end thanks to a brutal beginning to his start. Wainwright was in great form coming into the start with a 1.99 ERA over his past six outings. After allowing six runs on seven hits and three walks in the first two innings, Wainwright settled down to allow just two hits over the next four scoreless innings.
The first inning looked bleak as Ender Inciarte grounded out and Erick Aybar flew out to lead off. With two outs and nobody on, Freddie Freeman drew a walk to kickstart the inning. Matt Kemp doubled to center for the first hit of the game, and Nick Markakis grounded a ball up the middle that barely got through and brought home Freeman and Kemp. Adonis Garcia followed with a third consecutive hit to center field and pushed Markakis to third. Jace Peterson struck next with a single to right field to put Atlanta up 3-0 after one inning of play. After two outs to start the first, five consecutive Braves reached base.
Foltynewicz helped himself to lead off the second inning with a single up the middle. Inciarte extended his MLB-best hitting streak to 18 games with a single to right field that pushed Foltynewicz to third. Aybar got in on the action with the Braves' seventh hit of the young game -- a triple to right field that brought two more runs across, extending the early lead to 5-0. Freeman walked for the second time in two innings to put runners on first and third with nobody out, and Kemp brought home Aybar with a grounded force out to second base. After two innings, the Braves had 10 men reach base safely, including seven hits and six runners coming across to score.
That run support would be more than enough for Foltynewicz on Sunday afternoon. The hard-throwing right hander settled into a nice groove from the third inning on after finding trouble in the first couple innings. Foltynewicz escaped big jams -- two on, no outs in the first, bases loaded, two outs in the second -- with some timely strikeouts and weak contact generated in the first and second inning. After allowing a double to Brandon Moss to lead off the third inning, Foltynewicz retired 11 of the final 14 batters he saw in his six innings of work.
The only run surrendered by Foltynewicz would come in the fifth inning. Kolten Wong led off with a double to right center field. Stephen Piscotty hit a liner to right field that was enough to advance Wong to third on the first out. Brandon Moss followed with a fly out to fairly deep center field that was just enough to bring Wong home ahead of Inciarte's throw from the gap.
While the Braves' bats started strong, the lineup failed to get anything going after the first two innings. With seven hits just in those opening two frames, Atlanta managed only four more hits for the rest of the game and didn't bring across any more insurance runs.
Ian Krol worked a perfect seventh inning with two strikeouts before Madison Younginer came on in the eighth to make his big league debut. The 25-year old right hander recorded two outs while allowing three hits and two runs before being pulled for Eric O'Flaherty. O'Flaherty threw two wild pitched and allowed a walk, but he got Greg Garcia to ground out to escape the jam with a 6-3 Braves lead.
Kemp, Markakis, and Anthony Recker led the Braves offensively with multi-hit games. Aybar and Kemp each had 2 RBI's. Inciarte went 1-5 to extend his hitting streak to 18 games.
The Braves will travel to Milwaukee to start a four-game series against the Brewers on Monday night at 7:20 ET. Rob Whalen is expected to get the start in game one against Zach Davies.