Austin Riley hit a three-run homer off Lance McCullers Jr., Kyle Wright won his 15th game to tie for the NL lead, and the Atlanta Braves defeated the Houston Astros 6-2 on Friday night in the teams’ first meeting since last year’s World Series which Atlanta took in six games.
The defending champion Braves(75-47) have won 10 of 11 and are 51-20 since June 1, best in the majors over that span. Houston(77-45) had won six of eight and 10 of 15. The Astros are 41-21 since June 12.
Wright (15-5, 3.14 ERA) was making his first start since Aug. 10 because of arm fatigue. He erased a one-out walk in the third on Jose Altuve’s double-play grounder and stranded Kyle Tucker, who tripled with two outs in the sixth, by retiring trade-deadline acquisition Trey Mancini on a comebacker. Wright allowed two runs and six hits with one walk and seven strikeouts in six innings.
Houston, which was coming off a 21-5 victory at the Chicago White Sox, missed a chance at an inning-ending double play on Dansby Swanson’s single when second baseman Altuve couldn’t handle shortstop Jeremy Peña’s flip throw at second and the ball bounced away, leading to Riley’a seismic three run bomb for an early Atlanta lead.
Riley is the only player in the majors with at least 30 homers and 30 doubles, and has already agreed to a whooping 10 year $212 million extension with the Braves. Swanson, who went 3 for 5 with two RBIs, began the game ranked second in the majors with 104 hits since May 23. He is batting .323 in that span.
McCullers (1-1, 2.45 ERA) only glaring blemish was the Riley blast, and allowed a total of seven hits with three walks and six strikeouts in five innings. He was making his second start since missing last year’s ALCS and World Series and the first 119 games of this season with a right flexor tendon strain.
The Astros scored twice in the fifth to trim the lead to 3-2. Kyle Tucker hit his 22nd homer, and then Wright gave up singles to Mancini and Chas McCormick before Altuve drove in Mancini with a single to left.
Phil Maton gave up a leadoff double to Michael Harris II in the sixth and walked Ronald Acuña Jr. before Swanson doubledto right, playing both runners and make it 5-2. Matt Olson followed with a sacrifice fly, and the Braves bullpen took it from there Collin Mchugh going two and Kenly Jansen recording the save.
I used AP to help with the structure of this article.
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