With three games in the books in 2023, the Braves find themselves with a winning record (2-1). While this may seem insignificant to some, especially since there are 159 games remaining in the regular season, you have to remember that we’re used to being swept on Opening Weekend or stealing the last game before Monday.
The Braves more than doubled the run total of Washington, pushing across fifteen runs compared to Washington’s seven. Furthermore, four of Washington’s seven weekend runs came against Jared Shuster in the first inning of his MLB career.
Shuster struggled mightily to find the strikezone in that first inning, but he settled down enough to pitch 3 2/3 more innings, scoreless.
Shuster’s struggles, as brief as they were, brought about concern on a day in which many (myself included) expected to see Arm No. 1 of the starter depth we’re already being forced to draw from. I’m not ready to declare Jared’s career a total loss after just one tough inning, but we can’t make that kind of outing a habit if this NL East race is as tight as we all expect it to be.
What seems to be getting overlooked on from the Sunday contest is the disappearance of our offense. Scoring seven runs in each of the previous two games can be a double-edged sword. On one side it’s fair to expect an offense to come down a bit & not be able to maintain a breakneck pace for extended periods of time. On the other, when you score seven runs in two straight games, that type of production starts to become the expectation in lieu of the goal. d’Arnaud didn’t get the rest-day memo though, it seems. The veteran backstop knocked in the Braves’ only run, bringing his average to .462 through the first series, far and away the best on the team. Orlando Arcia & Matt Olson are tied for 2nd with a .364 average each.
Also, Sean Murphy has a cannon.