Teheran hooks the fish once again as Braves beat Marlins, 5-0

Julio Teheran badly needed a solid rebound start after his last appearance on the mound went awry. He got just that, and he got a lot of offensive help from the rest of his teammates as the Braves picked up a calm and business-like victory over the Marlins, 5-0.

The first inning of this game came and went without much of anything going on, and the top of the second continued that trend as Julio Teheran was on the path towards yet another great start against the Marlins this season. The bottom of the second brought offensive action from two of the most unlikely sources. First, a leadoff walk from Josh Donaldson was cashed in thanks to a triple (!) from Tyler Flowers (!!!). Shockingly, it was his third triple of the season and the Braves entered the lead. Immediately after that, Adeiny Hechavarria launched a rocket that was almost as impressive as his bat flip following the dinger.

The explosion of offense from the hitters with the highest odds against them to do so put the Braves ahead by three and that ended up being more than enough for Julio Teheran. He will end the season with 32 innings thrown against the Marlins with only a single run allowed. Marlins or not, that is impressive against any team that is playing in the majors and this was also just what Julio needed to bounce back from an extremely rough start during his last time out. Going seven innings and giving up zero runs and striking out nine batters is definitely a positive performance and his efforts were paramount in making tonight a very easy night for the Braves.

Ronald Acuña Jr. reached base in the third inning with a walk and I’m sure that everybody in the stadium knew that he going to take his chance to enter the 30/30 Club. The Marlins knew it as well, as they pretty easily sniffed out his stolen base attempt in the third inning. Unfortunately for Miami, Acuña was not done doing damage to them. He came back to the plate in the fifth inning with the game still 3-0 and a runner on first. By the end of his at-bat, the game was 5-0 after Acuña had once again sent a ball over the fence against the Marlins.

Interestingly enough, Julio Teheran and the rest of the Braves’ pitching staff were unable to put together a 1-2-3 inning against Miami — yet, they were able to keep the Marlins off the scoreboard. Part of that was due to the defense being on point, and Ozzie Albies had himself a whale of an inning in the bottom of the eighth.

On the other hand, you have already read about every single hit that the Braves had tonight. It just turned out that the Braves made their hits count in a big way. A triple and two home runs ended up being enough for the Braves to pick up a very comfortable victory against the Marlins.

The Braves didn’t gain any ground on the Nationals as they got their act together and beat a badly-slumping Pirates team, but they did take another day off of the calendar. Watching the calendar is almost as important as watching the scoreboard at this point of the season and as far as tonight goes, both factors were in favor of your Atlanta Braves.