Suter's Pickoff Blunder Sinks Atlanta in 9-5 Washington Rout
Washington turned a pitcher's error into a laugher, beating Atlanta 9-5 on September 1 behind a second inning that flipped the game on its head. The story of the night was a Nationals offense that punished every Atlanta mistake — and Atlanta made plenty of them.
The game looked like it might belong to Atlanta for about three batters. Ozzie Albies launched a 409-foot homer to center in the second inning to put the Braves up 1-0, and for a moment AJ Smith-Shawver looked like he might make it hold. He didn't. CJ Abrams singled to center, scoring Ford and Vivas to flip the score 2-1, and that single was the decisive blow of the night — Washington's win probability swung from 43% to 61% on that one swing. Brady House then doubled to right, scoring Crews and Abrams, and suddenly it was 4-1 Nationals before Atlanta could catch its breath. Smith-Shawver finished with 4.0 innings pitched, 6 hits, 5 earned runs, and 3 walks — a line that looks as rough as it reads.
Washington kept piling on. Yohandy Morales went deep to left center in the third — 407 feet — to push the lead to 5-2, and the Nationals tacked on a sacrifice fly from House in the sixth to make it 6-2. Then came the seventh inning, which will follow Brent Suter for a while. Suter committed a pickoff error that allowed Morales to score, pushing Washington to 7-2, and Jacob Young followed with a single to center that scored Nuñez for an 8-2 cushion. Suter finished with 2.0 innings, 4 hits, 2 earned runs, and 2 walks — but the error, not the ERA, is what defined his night. Atlanta mounted a genuine charge in the eighth: a wild pitch scored Acuña Jr., and Michael Harris II crushed a 386-foot two-run homer to left center to cut it to 8-5. For a few minutes it looked like a game again. It wasn't. Chaparro singled to right in the bottom of the eighth, scoring Lile and restoring Washington's four-run cushion at 9-5, and that was that.
Morales finished 3-for-5 with a homer, 1 RBI, and 2 runs scored — the kind of all-around line that anchors a lineup. Abrams went 2-for-4 with 2 RBI, and House drove in 3 despite going just 1-for-3. On the pitching side, Jared Simpson's 3.0 innings of no-hit, no-walk ball with 3 strikeouts looks like the unsung performance of the game — he came in after Jake Irvin's 4.0-inning, 2-earned-run start and simply shut Atlanta down when it mattered most. Harris II's homer was a reminder that Atlanta's lineup can erupt at any moment, but the Braves needed a lot more than one big swing to overcome what Washington built in the first three innings.