Late home runs power Braves past Rockies

Enyel De Los Santos (2-2) pitched Atlanta’s first 1-2-3 inning in the seventh, one of seven relievers Atlanta called upon to work Friday.

Raisel Iglesias worked around a lead-off infield single in the eighth and Dylan Lee gave up only a two-out bloop single in the ninth as the Braves (30-38) won for the third time in four games.

Atlanta turned four double plays in the win while Colorado could only muster four runs out of its 14 hits and left 12 on base.

“I felt it was a spring training game with all the guys (pitchers) we used,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “It seemed in the first three innings they had guys all over the place. We’re lucky that we escaped that and didn’t dig ourselves too big of a hole to come back.”

Nick Allen provided Atlanta some insurance with an RBI sacrifice fly in the eighth making it 8-4, then Matt Olson broke the game open with a two-run single that also saw Austin Riley score on a throwing error.

Ozuna’s sacrifice fly after that provided the final margin.

“After my homer it was a little bit of a momentum switch, put pressure on their bullpen and we got to see some of their arms,” Harris said. “Two more games and we’ve seen maybe more than half their bullpen. It’s good for the rest of the series and we’ll just keep the momentum going.”

Ronald Acuña Jr. went 3-for-4 with a walk and stole his first base of the season in the win. Olson went 3-for-4 and drove in three runs.

Atlanta trailed 4-1 after 5 1/2 and its offense was rather dormant, but it got a lead-off double from Olson and a two-out walk from Sean Murphy to ignite a rally. After a wild pitch, Harris took a 1-1 slider from Colorado reliever Jake Bird and deposited it in the right field seats to tie the game at 4-4.

“Just something over the plate to get the runs in” Harris said of what he was looking for from Bird. “Just trying to put a barrel on it and get two runs in to get the score a little closer.”

The Braves got something cooking in the seventh with a one-out single to right from Alex Verdugo and a two-out single up the middle from Olson before a wild pitch moved the runners to second and third with Ozuna up.

Ozuna then scorched his 11th home run of the season, taking a 1-0 slider out to left as a light rain began to fall.

Atlanta scored 11 unanswered after falling in an early hole.

Braves starter Bryce Elder got two quick outs to start his evening, but then Hunter Goodman lined a single to left and Ryan McMahon blasted an Elder change-up 441 feet to center making it 2-0 Rockies.

Atlanta got one of those runs back in the bottom of the first with Olson’s RBI sacrifice fly to left that scored Acuña.

But Elder didn’t have it on this night, and was quickly yanked with no one out in the fourth after giving up an RBI single to Goodman making it 3-1. Reliever Aaron Bummer was thrown into the fire and allowed an RBI single to McMahon before escaping further damage.

Elder was charged four earned runs on seven hits over 3 1/3 innings. He walked three and hit two batters in his shortest outing of the season.

“Just couldn’t get it going. Just wasn’t the same sinker as it was the other day in San Francisco. He just got off,” Snitker said. “He did a good job of kind of holding the game there a little bit. It could have gotten away at any point in time with all the base runners (Colorado) had, but he just wasn’t synced-up tonight for some reason.”

Colorado starter German Marquez, who had been 1-3 with a 7.67 ERA in five previous starts against Atlanta, worked around six hits and allowed just one run while striking out seven over five innings.

The Rockies couldn’t back up his quality start, however, and dropped to an MLB-worst 13-56.