Braves beat up on Reds bullpen, open series in Cincinnati with win

“Just trying to get the next man up and doing it the right way. Everybody’s not trying to be the hero,” Harris said of the Braves’ offense. “Just trusting the guy behind you and trusting our plan and trying to execute every night.”

Trailing by a single run (a deficit that had been four after two innings) Friday in the sixth, the Reds went to their bullpen. Right-hander Yunior Marte gave up a single to Dominic Smith and plunked Austin Riley before Mike Yastrzemski lined an RBI double into the right-field corner.

After Marte gave up a single to Mateo, he struck out Chadwick Tromp and issued an intentional walk to Ronald Acuña Jr. Left-handed Caleb Ferguson was called upon to face Harris — and Harris shot a two-run single to left making it 8-3.

Harris now has seven three-hit games this season, tied for the most in baseball.

“They brought a lefty in that I faced in the past, and kind of knew how he was probably going to try to pitch me,” Harris said. “I was ready for the heater. He threw it middle-middle over the plate, and just tried to take it somewhere out in the outfield where I wouldn’t have to worry about a double play. Got lucky.”

Atlanta’s bullpen, by contrast to their counterparts, closed out the game with four scoreless innings and the Braves are now 32-0 when leading after eight innings.

Dylan Lee, Robert Suarez and Tyler Kinley, respectively, closed out the win out of the Braves’ pen.

“I had everybody with pretty much a full tank of gas out there,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “And ‘Dee Dee’ (Didier Fuentes) has been good coming in and going one-plus or two to bridge the gap to the back-end guys. It was set up well tonight.”

The Braves never trailed Friday thanks to Acuña, fresh off his Thursday grand slam in Boston, who launched a lead-off homer Friday to put the Braves up 1-0. Acuña took a 1-2 curveball and hit it 429 feet into the left field seats for his 38th career lead-off home run.

The 38 career lead-off homers for Acuña is the 13th-most in MLB history.

The Braves loaded the bases with no one out in the second and came away with three more runs against Reds starter Chris Paddack (0-7). Mateo plated one with a fielder’s choice, Tromp brought in another with a sacrifice fly and Harris made it 4-0 with an RBI single to right.

The Reds (29-27) got a run back in the fourth on one swing of left fielder JJ Bleday’s bat. Bleday didn’t miss a 92-mph fastball down the heart of the plate from Braves starter Grant Holmes and hit a rocket out to right.

Two outs later in the fourth Nathaniel Lowe crushed a cutter that didn’t cut enough into the right-field seats cutting the score to 4-2.

Holmes (4-2) was lifted in the fifth with two outs and runners at the corners. The Braves called upon Fuentes who gave up an RBI single to Sal Stewart as the Reds inched within 4-3.

Fuentes avoided further damage leaving Holmes’ final line at three earned runs, seven hits, five strikeouts and a walk. He threw 80 pitches, 29 of which came in the fourth inning.

From there it was a battle of bullpens, and the Braves more often than not win that battle.

“The plan is nothing original. We try to try to jump out to it to an early lead and then get in the bullpen and try to stay away from, maybe, some of the higher-leverage guys if you have a lead by the by the middle innings. We’ve been able to do that quite a bit this year,” Weiss said. “I think it’s just an attack mentality of trying to get out to a lead and then we’re getting to their pen, and at the same time we get to pass the ball around our bullpen which is pretty good.”