Braves win 8th straight, Tyler Mahle set to make debut against Yankees

After back-to-back nights of the pitching staff carrying the Braves to wins over the Marlins, the offense decided to make it easy on them, exploding for eleven runs on a night that ended with Miami subbing in a position player to pitch.

Ronald Acuña Jr. led the way with a couple of home runs. They weren’t exactly his typical screamers — one of them actually the result of Marlins players running into each other on the warning track — but they all count the same in the box score.

Matt Olson added a double to go along with his 32nd home run of the season. The two extra-base hits now have him leading all of baseball in extra-base knocks, just ahead of Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, who’s likely to go on and win the MVP in the American League. That’s the kind of season the Braves first baseman is having as he closes in on 40 home runs with a lot of baseball still left to play.

Michael Harris II and Mauricio Dubon also did something pretty unique, recording hits in three straight innings.

But just because the pitching staff didn’t need its A-game doesn’t mean it took the night off. Martin Perez looked great over three innings, allowing just one walk with three strikeouts before he was unfortunately removed due to a lengthy rain delay. The bullpen then covered the next six on the way to an 11-3 win — the club’s eighth straight victory.

And it’s not as if the Braves are winning by the skin of their teeth. The Nationals and Marlins barely put up a fight, with Miami never leading at any point in the series. This might be the best baseball we’ve seen in Atlanta all season, and we’re talking about a team that’s won 70 games in early August and sits 25 games over .500.

A much stiffer task awaits this weekend, however, as the Braves travel to New York for an interleague battle with the Yankees — which is where we’ll get our first look at Tyler Mahle. The trade deadline addition is set to make his Braves debut on Friday night, followed by Chris Sale on Saturday and Grant Holmes in the series finale.

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(Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire)