Kevin Pillar and Forrest Wall homered from the bottom of Atlanta's batting order as the Braves reached a milestone by securing their 100th victory of the season with an 8-5 win against the host Washington Nationals in the second game of a doubleheader Sunday night.
Braves starter Spencer Strider moved closer to a personal milestone after the Braves (100-56) wiped out a three-run deficit. Atlanta has back-to-back seasons with at least 100 wins for the first time since 2002 and 2003.
Strider (19-5) added to his majors-leading win total and strikeout total (274). He gave up four runs on seven hits with one walk and four strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
Strider has won in each of his last three starts. Sunday's victory in the series finale puts him in line for a 20-win season with one start remaining later this week. He improved to 3-1 in five career matchups with the Nationals.
Pillar's two-run homer in a four-run fourth inning put Atlanta ahead. It was Pillar's eighth homer of the year. Wall hit his first career home run in the sixth, also a two-run shot.
The Braves picked up a couple of key insurance runs on Orlando Arcia's two-out single in the seventh.
Arcia drove in three runs and Matt Olson went 3-for-5 and scored two runs. Olson also drove in one run, giving him a single-season team-record 133 RBIs.
It marked the home finale for the Nationals (69-88), who finished 34-47 at Nationals Park. Washington won 3-2 in the opener of the day-night doubleheader.
Washington starter Joan Adon (2-4) took the loss, giving up four runs on five hits in 4 2/3 innings.
Luis Garcia drove in two Washington runs, with one of those coming on a sixth-inning solo home run for his ninth blast of the season. Keibert Ruiz, who joined Garcia with three hits, drove in the first two runs with a third-inning double to open the game's scoring.
Lane Thomas hit his 27th homer of the season, a one-out long ball in the ninth.
The Nationals, who are aiming to reach the 70-win mark for the first time since 2019, lost three of four games in the series.
--Field Level Media
Atlanta | Washington | |
Spencer Strider | Player | Joan Adon |
Win | W/L | Loss |
5.2 | IP | 4.2 |
4 | Strikeouts | 5 |
7 | Hits | 5 |
6.35 | ERA | 7.71 |
Atlanta | Washington | |
Matt Olson | Player | Luis Garcia |
3 | Hits | 3 |
1 | RBI | 2 |
0 | HR | 1 |
4 | TB | 6 |
.600 | Avg | .600 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Atlanta | 10 | 2 | 19 | .278 | 20 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
Washington | 12 | 2 | 20 | .300 | 15 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 |