Braves extend winning streak, the latest on Spencer Strider

Another late rally helped the Braves to their fourth straight win last night at Truist Park.

Spencer Schwellenbach didn’t have his best stuff in his fifth start of the season. The Cardinals hit him hard all night, but he was still able to finish seven innings, allowing just three runs (two earned) on eight hits with five strikeouts and no walks. That’s how you know he’s pretty special. When he’s making just his 26th MLB start, and we’re calling seven innings of two-run ball “a little off.”

Schwellenbach would exit the game with the Cardinals leading 3-2. That’s when things got really interesting. A Matt Olson single with two men on tied the game. Ozzie Albies then walked to load the bases, and Michael Harris II gave the Braves the lead with a sac-fly, which was followed by the exclamation point — a three-run line drive home run over the wall in left field by Sean Murphy. A five-run eighth inning — the Braves’ second five-run eighth inning in four games — gave the good guys a four-run cushion, and they’d need every bit of it.

Raisel Iglesias came on to close the game in the ninth and had one of the worst outings of his Braves career. Back-to-back one-out doubles cut the lead to three, and two batters later, it would be a one-run lead after a home run off the bat of Willson Contreras. Brendan Donovan would then walk, bringing Nolan Arenado to the plate with a chance to put the Cardinals back on top with two outs in the ninth, only for the game to end in the most anti-climactic way possible.