Reynaldo López’s return to the mound was a successful one, as he pitched five innings while striking out ten batters and only giving up one run. Between his efforts and the bullpen putting up yet another great performance, the Atlanta Braves were able to put up enough offense eke out a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
As you would expect with Zack Wheeler and the 2024 version of Reynaldo López on the mound for this one, this one was a low scoring affair where the two pitchers set the tone right from the get-go. López sat down the Phillies in order with a pair of strikeouts to kick things off and then Wheeler struck out the side (with a one-out single from Ramón Laureano sandwiched in there). López found himself in a bases loaded situation with two outs in the second but he was able to strike out Johan Rojas to end the scoring threat right there.
While the Braves didn’t immediately make the Phillies pay for leaving them loaded in the second inning, López pitched another scoreless frame in the third and that was when Atlanta finally struck. Whit Merrifield led off the third by hitting a liner down the right field line that bounced away from Nick Castellanos while he tried to field it. The bounce allowed Merrifield to make it into third with a leadoff triple and then Michael Harris II got a middle-middle cutter from Zack Wheeler and promptly smacked it into the weird-looking outfield to plate Merrifield and put the Braves on the board first. Wheeler clamped down from that point forward and sat down the Braves in order to end the third but the offense had shown signs of life…