Drake Baldwin, Matt Olson and Austin Riley all homered and Chris Sale pitched seven scoreless innings to lead the Atlanta Braves to a 15-1 win over the visiting Texas Rangers on Friday in the opener of their three-game set.
It’s the eighth time this season Atlanta has scored double-digit runs and improved their record in Friday home games to 9-0. It was the most runs allowed by Texas this season.
Sale (10-6) became the 10th National League pitcher to reach double-digit wins. He allowed only two hits, never allowed a runner to reach third base and struck out six.
The left-hander’s fourth strikeout was the 2,700th of his career. Sale is No. 27 on the all-time strikeout list and needs 71 to catch Frank Tanana (2,773).
With Atlanta up 2-0 entering the fourth inning, Baldwin hit a 419-foot three-run blast into the Atlanta bullpen in right-center field. Olson followed one out later with a 420-foot solo homer into the right-field seats, his 26th of the season.
Baldwin was 3-for-4 with one walk, two runs and five RBIs. The Braves had 19 hits, with each player in the starting lineup getting at least one. Olson, Riley, Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, Mauricio Dubon and Jim Jarvis each had two hits.
Rangers starter Cal Quantrill (3-2) was roughed up for six runs on 11 hits, both season highs, in four innings, causing his ERA to jump from 3.11 to 3.93.
Right-hander Emiliano Teodo followed with 1 2/3 innings and allowed two runs in his major league debut.
The Braves scored two runs in the second inning on RBI singles by Baldwin and Albies.
Atlanta added two more runs in the fifth to build an 8-0 lead. Jarvis had a run-scoring double and he came around to score on Baldwin’s single.
Harris just missed a grand slam in the seventh, settling for a three-run double off the wall, and scored on Dubon’s single.
Atlanta scored three times in the ninth off position player Kyle Higashioka, the team’s backup catcher. Riley hit his 10th homer and reliever Victor Mederos added a two-run single – the first hit of his career.
