Braves score early, hold on late to beat Marlins

AP photo by Ben Margot / Atlanta Braves closer Will Smith, right, celebrates with catcher William Contreras after earning his 17th save of the season in a 1-0 win against the Miami Marlins on Friday night.
AP photo by Ben Margot / Atlanta Braves closer Will Smith, right, celebrates with catcher William Contreras after earning his 17th save of the season in a 1-0 win against the Miami Marlins on Friday night.

ATLANTA - Miami Marlins starter Pablo López insisted he wasn't trying to plunk Ronald Acuña Jr. The umpiring crew didn't agree.

López was ejected after hitting Acuña with his very first pitch Friday, leading to the only run as the Atlanta Braves edged Miami 1-0.

"We all know Acuña is a superstar," López said. "We all know the things he does. You also don't want to put him on base because he's a guy that can steal 40 to 50 bases a year."

López said the pitch that hit Acuña "was just a poorly executed sinker. The ball just ran instead of sinking and unfortunately hit him, and that's not what I want."

The Marlins have a history of hitting Acuña. Miami pitcher José Ureña was tossed after nailing him with his first pitch in 2018, and López didn't last any longer.

López was ejected for hitting Acuña in the back of the left arm, and manager Don Mattingly soon was tossed, too, for arguing on his pitcher's behalf. They stayed on the field for a couple minutes to plead their case with umpires.

"It wasn't on purpose," Mattingly said. "We have zero issues with the Braves. We have zero issues with these guys. This is a past thing that happened three years ago."

Acuña said he wasn't sure if the Marlins were trying to hit him again or not.

"I don't know, to be honest, just because of how many times it's happened," Acuña said through a translator. "Whether it was or whether it wasn't doesn't matter to me. My primary purpose and focus is that the team won."

The 23-year-old outfielder, a two-time All-Star, has been hit five times in 52 career games against the Marlins.

Acuña advanced to third on Freddie Freeman's single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ozzie Albies, the National League leader with 59 RBIs this season.

Miami pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre Jr. was tossed by crew chief Dan Iassogna for arguing about López's ejection after Freeman's hit. Iassogna defended his decisions on the ejections.

"I think if you followed baseball at all, you understand that there's history between this team and Acuña specifically, but there was no heads up in place, no formal heads up in place for us prior to this game," Iassogna said. "And understand this is one of the other things that we're tasked to do is to keep control of the game.

"And we felt, and I felt, that by ejecting the pitcher rather than putting a warning out, that would absolutely stop any retaliation or continuing to really start a beanball war throughout the game. And so we made the decision to eject. I ejected him, and we did not have a beanball war. Tonight, we had one ejection. We had one hit batter and we had an ejection."

López didn't think his ejection was warranted.

"It was pretty confusing," López said. "You could tell by how Donnie and Mel came out of the dugout. They were pretty shocked by it, too. It was just, I don't know. Like, I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to do. It just caught me by surprise. It stings."

Atlanta got just two hits and still won its third in a row to improve to 40-41. The three-time reigning NL East Division champions are still trying to push their record above .500 for the first time this year.

Drew Smyly won his career-best fourth straight start in a game that featured little offense as the Marlins managed four hits. Miami pitchers combined to retire 18 straight batters through the sixth before Albies reached on an infield single to begin the seventh.

Ross Detwiler faced 10 batters in three innings in place of López (4-5), who threw only one pitch and was charged with the loss. Anthony Bender struck out the side in the fourth and fifth.

Smyly (6-3) gave up three hits and two walks with seven strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. He escaped a jam with runners on first and third in the fourth when Miguel Rojas grounded into a double play.

Jesús Aguilar touched Smyly for a single in the second and another in the fourth. Smyly was done after Garrett Cooper singled in the sixth, and Luke Jackson entered to end a threat with runners on first and second when Aguilar flied out.

A.J. Minter, the second Atlanta pitcher of the seventh, balked Miguel Rojas to second, but he escaped the jam when Rojas was tagged out rounding third on an infield single. Chris Martin picked off Starling Marte after walking him in the eighth.

Braves closer Will Smith pitched in the ninth to convert a shaky 17th save in 19 chances this year. The bases were loaded when Jon Berti popped up and pinch-hitter Sandy León flied out to end it.

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