Strider was backed by mostly projected starters in the lineup, while Dodd had an offense behind him that outside of Marcell Ozuna, Jarred Kelenic, and Travis d’Arnaud, consisted of players fighting for a shot of making the Opening Day roster.
Based on the lineups, one may have assumed that the game against the Twins would have featured the most offense, since that is where most the regulars were playing, and the Rays had Zach Eflin on the mound.
Well, this was not the case. Eflin, who was sixth in Cy Young voting last season, could not handle the young Braves team. (Not that he was necessarily trying to…) Forrest Wall led things off with a flyout, followed by Kelenic being called out on strikes. Ozuna had a single but then d’Arnaud was also rung up.
After the first inning is where the fun began. David Fletcher led off the inning by making his way to first on ball that deflected off the shortstop. Two outs ensued, but that did not stop an upcoming barrage. Luis Liberato singled to put Fletcher on third base. A double steal resulted in Fletcher scoring from third for the first run of the game. Luke Waddell joined in on the fun by walking to first, followed by Forrest Wall knocking a three-run dinger to put the Braves up 4-0.
The Braves didn’t slow down in the third. Ozuna singled, and following doubles from Fletcher and Phillip Evans, the lead went up by two. Then, an almost repeat of the second innings happened again. Waddell once again made it to first (by single this time), knocking in Evans, followed by yet another Forrest Wall three-run homer.
Ozuna seemingly did not want Wall to be the only player to hit a ball over the wall, so he joined in on the fun with his own longball later on.
