Atlanta will try to cool off reigning National League Player of the Week Daylen Lile when the Braves open a two-game series against the Nationals in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night.
Lile won the award for the week ending Aug. 30 and picked up where he left off with a pair of two-run homers as Washington rallied for a 6-3 win over the Miami Marlins on Monday night.
The Nationals took three of four games from the Marlins and were a ninth-inning bullpen meltdown on Sunday away from a sweep.
The Braves saw their seven-game winning streak end with a 7-3 loss to the visiting San Francisco Giants on Monday in the makeup of a game that was postponed in June.
Atlanta (82-56) leads the NL East by four games over the Philadelphia Phillies (78-60).
AJ Smith-Shawver (0-0, 5.93 ERA) of the Braves will oppose fellow right-hander Jake Irvin (2-8, 5.62) on Tuesday.
Smith-Shawver will make his fourth start of the season as he comes back from Tommy John surgery. Against the Los Angeles Dodgers last Wednesday, he completed five innings for the first time, allowing three runs on five hits in a game Atlanta won 6-5. He struck out three and walked three.
“Yeah, pretty happy with how it went,” Smith-Shawver said. “I think every outing you could look back and take a pitch or two that you wish you could get back, but I mean that’s just a great team win.”
He is 1-0 with a 4.40 ERA in three career starts vs. Washington.
Irvin is 0-4 with a 6.30 ERA in six starts since his return from the injured list.
Last Thursday, he was done in by walks in his team’s 7-1 win over the Colorado Rockies. He left the game after 4 1/3 innings having given up one run on three hits, but he had thrown 94 pitches, inflated by six walks and six strikeouts.
“He had six walks and one hit by pitch but was able to limit the damage and pitch out of it a lot of times, which isn’t easy to do,” Nationals manager Blake Butera said.
Irvin is 3-4 with a 4.08 ERA in 10 career starts against the Braves. He tossed five hitless innings to beat them on May 23 but left the game with shoulder tightness and went on the injured list with a right shoulder strain.
On Monday night, the Nationals (66-74) trailed Miami 3-2 before Lile’s second homer of the night, a long blast in the seventh.
Last week, Lile hit .458 (11-for-24) with three homers and 10 RBIs. He’s got two homers and four RBIs one game into the new week. It was his fourth multi-homer game of his career — all this season.
“Just staying within myself,” said Lile, who has 20 homers and 80 RBIs for the season. “Trusting everything I’m doing before the game and then coming here and just having fun playing the game I love and trusting my approach.”
Unlike Sunday, Washington’s bullpen nailed this game down. Erik Tolman recorded his first career save after throwing a scoreless eighth and ninth innings with four strikeouts. He came on and pitched out of a bases loaded, no-outs jam in the eighth.
Nationals infielder CJ Abrams (back tightness) was scratched from Monday’s game, and outfielder James Wood (oblique) is expected to play another rehab game before he returns.
In Atlanta, the Braves lost for the fifth time in six games this season against the Giants. The Braves’ Michael Harris II hit his 23rd home run.
“Didn’t get any timely hits offensively,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “Wash that one off and get on the plane.”
–Field Level Media
