ST. LOUIS — The Braves looked like they might roll past the Cardinals on Friday at Busch Stadium, but after jumping out to a 6-2 lead, they had to hold on for a 6-5 victory.
Sean Murphy, the designated hitter on this hot and muggy night on the banks of the Mississippi River, belted two home runs and drove in three. It was his sixth multihomer game of his career and second of the season (April 12 vs. the Rays), and also his first three-hit game since June 19, 2024.
“The game just ebbs and flows, right? I’ve kind of been doing the same things I have been doing,” Murphy said of his recent offensive success. “You adjust in a couple spots here and there, but honestly, nothing too different. Just the way it goes sometimes.
“Just saw (the ball) pretty well (Friday). And then got pitches to hit, too, and that’s half the battle, right? Sometimes you just don’t get anything to hit.”
Ronald Acuña Jr. had two doubles on a three-hit night, and Jurickson Profar and Drake Baldwin had two hits each. The Braves’ bullpen worked six innings, a curious development considering the team hasn’t announced a starter for Saturday or Sunday of the weekend series.
Enyel De Los Santos (3-2) pitched two scoreless innings of relief, and Austin Cox logged a 1-2-3 sixth before starting the seventh with a four-pitch walk. Rafael Montero kept the Cardinals off the board in the seventh by stranding two, and Pierce Johnson worked a 1-2-3 eighth (thanks to a one-out pickoff).
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Raisel Iglesias set down the Cardinals in order in the ninth to pick up his 10th save of the season and first since June 24. The Braves (41-52) improved to 12-23 in one-run games this season.
“The bullpen are the heroes tonight,” Murphy said. “(Baldwin) deserves a ton of credit because it’s not easy to handle that situation. Drake got all those guys through it with no runs and kind of stopped the little momentum that they had. Full credit to those guys.”
Atlanta did something in the first inning Friday that it hadn’t done in four previous chances against Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore — score a run. Acuña led off the frame with a double, advanced to third on a wild pitch and came home on Austin Riley’s RBI single to center.
Murphy stepped in and lifted an 0-2 slider 437 feet out to left into the Braves’ bullpen, his 14th home run of the year, making it 3-0.
Alec Burleson’s RBI double into the right-field corner put the Cardinals (50-45) on the board in the bottom half. Willson Contreras’ RBI single made it 3-2.
Acuña struck again in the second, lining an RBI single over third to score Michael Harris II, who had doubled with one out.
Murphy’s second homer of the night came on the 13th pitch he saw from Liberatore to start the third inning. Murphy sent a fastball 440 feet to dead center.
“I used my timeout before I got up there and around pitch nine, I was very tired. Kind of wish I still had my timeout at that point,” Murphy deadpanned. “You just battle and you don’t wanna get down there, especially with nobody on, nobody out, it’s more just put a ball in play and see what happens.”
Baldwin’s RBI single to right center later in the frame gave the Braves a 6-2 lead. They didn’t score again, and they didn’t need to.
Liberatore (6-7) lasted three innings and was charged six earned runs on nine hits. It was the most runs he had allowed since being touched up by the Royals for seven on June 5.
Braves starter Grant Holmes couldn’t quite settle in, either, giving up a two-run, two-out single to light-hitting catcher Pedro Pages and an RBI single to Victor Scott II in the bottom of the third.
The Cardinals got to Holmes for five earned runs over three innings. The outing was his shortest start of the season, and his one strikeout was a season low. He forced only seven swings and misses.
Holmes snapped a streak of 11 straight starts of allowing three earned runs or less. And that happened on a night when his offense, which had been giving him an average of 2.7 runs per game in his last eight outings, scored three in the first inning alone.
His bullpen more than picked him up.
“My god, they were just unbelievable in what they did and how they handed it off to each other,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “The jams they pitched out of, because (Holmes) was just grinding. The secondary pitches have something he’s been leaning on all year and tonight it just wasn’t happening for him. He just kept fighting and the guys did a great job coming in behind him and holding that one-run lead.”
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