Braves sweep Nationals, win fifth straight

A 4-2 win Sunday at Truist Park over the visiting Nationals gave the Braves a four-game sweep and a five-game winning streak, their longest since April 14-20, when they won six in a row.

Matt Olson and Mike Yastrzemski each hit home runs, making the Braves 37-7 when they hit at least two homers, and the bullpen threw five scoreless innings. The Braves are now 57-1 in games when they are leading after eight innings.

“Obviously, a great series there for us,” Olson said. “Contributions from everybody, good pitching, good defense, good hitting, and just some clean games. Nice to have a couple that weren’t nail-biters all the way through.”

The Braves will get a well-deserved off day Monday before resuming the season Tuesday at Truist Park against the Marlins. It will be just the second off day for the squad since the All-Star break (they had an unscheduled off day last Tuesday when a game against the Mets in New York was rained out) and they survived the first 17 contests of the second half with a 12-5 record.

Two straight losses to the last-place Mets last week didn’t sour the stretch of good play that will keep the Braves in first place by eight games ahead of the Phillies going into the first full week of August. And holding the high-scoring Nationals to 11 runs over the weekend’s four-game series was icing on the cake.

“Really difficult to sweep a four-game series in this league. Next to impossible, really, but we played really well. Kept the high-scoring offense down for the most part throughout the series, the highest-scoring offense. So we pitched really well,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “Bullpen was phenomenal again (Sunday). Hit some homers, we’ve been doing that, which is always a good sign.

“But yeah, 17-game stretch, we end up 12-5. That’s impressive coming out of the break. So job well done by our guys.”

For the 60th time this season, the Braves scored first, this time courtesy of Yastrzemski’s leadoff homer in the third. The Braves’ right- fielder drove a 97 mph fastball from Nationals starter Cade Cavalli (8-5) into the bullpen in right-center field for his eighth home run of the season.

Braves starter JR Ritchie, called up Sunday to take the place of the injured Reynaldo López, danced in and out of trouble through three scoreless innings. But a pair of singles and a walk loaded the bases before a first-pitch curveball hit Andrés Chaparro in the side of the head.

James Wood gave the Nationals (55-58) a 2-1 lead with a sacrifice fly to deep center.

Olson quickly erased the deficit leading off the bottom of the fourth by hitting a 2-1 cutter on a line into the seats in front of the Chop House. It was the third game in a row Olson has homered, giving him 31 for the season.

“To me, it’s always hitting pitches that you should, whether it be something that you’re kind of looking for, or over the heart of the plate,” Olson said of his hot streak. “Whether it’s a hit or not, a ball put in play that kind of should be, as opposed to fouling it off, getting deeper in counts, letting the pitcher kind of expand a little more - that’s always kind of a sign for me.”

Ritchie was lifted after four innings, four hits, four strikeouts, two earned runs and three walks. Only 45 of his 81 pitches were strikes, and the rookie has now walked 36 batters in 58 innings.