2023 #8: FRANCHISE
Orlando Arcia is playing out of his mind right now.
Night after night, Orlando is impacting the game in one way or another. Tonight, in the Braves home opener he went a cool 3-for-4 with a bomb, two runs scored & two runs batted in, including the walkoff RBI-single.
After the game Orlando told Kelly Crull through the Braves interpreter that he told the boys in the dugout “if it gets to me in the 9th I’m going to end it”.
THE CONFIDENCE.
In true Braves home opener fashion, those 9 innings were slammed full of drama. Two runs in the eighth to tie the game before Juan Soto made the only defensive play he made all night, to preserve the tie. Then with two outs in the 9th, Eddie Rosario works a 3-0 count before swinging at two consecutive changeups below the zone. THEN, like it was the 2021 NLCS all over again, Super Rosario delivers with a hustle-double poked into shallow right field.
Up came Orlando Arcia. On a high & outside fastball, Orlando put the level swing to it and sent it right back from whence it came. The single up the middle was hit well enough to bring Eddie home for the winner & his teammates to the j field dirt to celebrate the walkoff.
After that INSANE game, the Braves record improved to 6-1 with an early 3-game lead in the division. Atlanta W’s s also the only NL East team to play today.
There’s three more games in this series that stretches to Sunday night (televised on ESPN).
Atlanta’s starter in Game Two will be Jared Shuster, as he makes a run at redemption from his first career start last week in St. Louis. This San Diego lineup, on paper, is more explosive than the lone MLB team he’s faced. He‘ll carry an 0-1 record with a 7.71 ERA to the Truist Park mound on Friday evening.
First pitch is scheduled for 7:20 pm Eastern.