The Atlanta Braves will hope to keep their new-found offense rolling when they host the Miami Marlins in the second game of a three-game series on Saturday.
The pitching matchups feature a pair of right-handers — Atlanta’s A.J. Smith-Shawver (0-1, 4.50 ERA) against Miami’s Cal Quantrill (0-1, 13.50).
The Braves collected a season-high 16 hits on Friday and claimed their first victory of the season in a 10-0 win over the Marlins. The win ended a seven-game losing streak to start the season.
“Finally seeing the offense come alive was really nice after last week,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said.
The Braves broke out of their offensive slump with six players getting multiple hits, including Marcell Ozuna and Matt Olson, who both hit their first home runs. Ozuna went 3-for-5 with a double and three RBI and raised his batting average from .188 to .286. Michael Harris II had three hits and Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley and Bryan De La Cruz each had two hits.
“They hit some balls really hard,” Snitker said. “It was all positive and you hope you can point back to this night as something big.”
Smith-Shawver earned a spot in the rotation during spring, which led to the team trading Ian Anderson to the Los Angeles Angels to clear the way.
Smith-Shawver pitched four innings and allowed two runs in his debut at San Diego on Sunday, with six hits, three walks and four strikeouts. Smith-Shawver has never faced the Marlins.
“I just keep telling myself to go have fun out there,” Smith-Shawver said. “I think whenever I’m having fun and just going out there and competing, it’s when I have my best product on the field.”
Quantrill will make his second start of the season and is looking for his first career win with the Marlins. He lost his debut to the New York Mets on March 31, allowing six earned runs on eight hits in four innings. Two of those hits left the park, one of them a grand slam by Pete Alonso.
Quantrill has made three career starts against Atlanta. He is 0-2 with a 3.94 ERA. He hasn’t faced the Braves since July 5, 2023, and hasn’t pitched in Atlanta since May 1, 2019.
“Cal is a veteran, been in a lot of spots before and has been throwing well,” Miami manager Clayton McCullough said.
Quantrill said of his season debut: “I got into some bad counts. Just got away from me a little bit there, but threw the ball pretty well until the fifth. Just bad counts and free base runners got me in the end.”
The Marlins bullpen, which entered the series opener with a 2.62 ERA and had been credited with three of the club’s four wins, took a hit on Friday. George Soriano allowed two runs, both on solo homers, and Luarbert Arias gave up five runs in one-third of an inning. Position player Javier Sanoja was called on to get the final two outs.
Miami third baseman Graham Pauley, who grew up in the northern Atlanta suburbs, is playing against the Braves for the first time. Pauley was acquired from the San Diego Padres in a trade last summer. He went 0-for-3 in the series opener.
-Field Level Media
