It was a frustrating night for the Braves, who fell to the Rockies on Friday night by a score of 4-3.
For whatever reason, Atlanta was hyper aggressive all night in the batter’s box and had little to show for it. They only saw 94 pitches across nine innings and seemingly swung early in the count at every opportunity. In this recent stretch of frustrating losses, I’m not sure any were more frustrating than this one.
Ozzie Albies, who returned to the lineup after missing the last two games with a bruised kneecap, led off the night with a solo homer to center. Albies showed no signs of being slowed by the injury throughout the evening, an encouraging sign for the young second baseman.
Charlie Blackmon answered in the bottom half of the first with a solo homer of his own to tie things at 1-1.
Adam Duvall tripled in the second and was brought in by Eddie Rosario with a sac fly, but the lead was short lived as Colorado plated two runs in the third to take a 3-2 lead.
Austin Riley tied things up in the sixth with a two-out single to plate Freddie Freeman. But once again the Rockies would battle back with a two-out rally of their own; Trevor Story doubled and CJ Cron hit a hanging 0-2 slider just past Austin Riley to give the Rockies a 4-3 edge.
Huascar Ynoa was not sharp with his command, but he pitched well enough in his first career start inside Coors Field. He exited after 5.2 innings with five hits, four runs and a walk allowed. He struck out five. His ERA sits at 3.19 on the year.
The Phillies got blown out by the Marlins on Friday night, so the division lead remains at two games.
The Braves and Rockies will continue the four-game tilt on Saturday night with Ian Anderson (6-5, 3.36 ERA) set to face German Marquez (11-10, 4.10 ERA) at 8:10 p.m. ET.