Scoreless Night Shows Atlanta Braves Bullpen Is Returning to Dominance

The Atlanta Braves bullpen was shut down against the Phillies on Tuesday night, carrying on a dominant trend going back to the start of April.

The early struggles are being put behind them | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The Atlanta Braves' 7-5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies came in large part due to a shutdown performance by the bullpen. 

Four relievers on the staff combined for 4 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing three walks and no hits while striking out four batters. 

“They kinda picked each other up. It was good to see,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “They’re working five days off. You never know if they’re gonna be rusty for not being out there with the blood pumping, but they were all just nails.” 

Daysbel Hernandez bounced back from his struggles on April 2 against the Dodgers to retire all four batters he faced. 

Snitker said that this outing was a good opportunity for Hernandez to show that he can handle these high-levelage situations. 

“He hadn’t had a lead like that, so that was a good barometer of what he’s capable of,” Snitker said. 

Closer Raisel Iglesias pitched a scoreless inning to slam the door and pick up his first save of the year. 

“It’s great to get him out there. I mean, he hasn’t pitched much, and I was worried that he’s had so much time off and we put him out there in that situation. But he does what he does.” 

Iglesias had plenty of nights like the one he had on Tuesday last season. However, in the context of this season, that outing was crucial. 

This was just his third appearance this season. His first appearance came in the 6-1 loss to the Dodgers on March 31 just to get him playing time. He pitched a scoreless inning in a low-leverage situation. 

In his second appearance, he couldn’t escape the jam the Braves got in the bottom of the eighth against the Dodgers on April 2, and then gave up a walk-off home run to Shohei Ohtani to lose 6-5. He got the job this time around, and more importantly, he did it on a week of rest. 

This shutdown performance is part of a trend. Since the start of the Dodgers series, the Braves bullpen has a 2.49 ERA. If you remove the aforementioned 6-5 loss to the Dodgers, the bullpen’s ERA drops to 1.61. On the season, it’s down to 4.09 after Tuesday night. 

Course correction is occurring, and it’s starting to show in the results of the game.