Orlando Arcia's Two Homers Help Braves Clinch Season Series Over Phillies

The Atlanta Braves topped the Philadelphia Phillies in a National League East showdown on Friday night at Citizens Bank Park. With the win, the Braves are now 74-61. The Phillies are 79-56. Atlanta is 5.0 games back of the Phillies in the National League East but still remains in firm grasp of the third and final wild card spot in the National League.

The Braves got a very solid start in the 7-2 win from right-hander Reynaldo Lopez, who went 6.0 innings to get the win. He gave up one run on four hits while walking one and striking out six. He's now 8-4 on the year with a 2.00 ERA.

The Lopez start continued an unbelievably historic run for the Braves rotation, according to Sarah Langs of MLB.com:

Braves starting pitchers have allowed 3 runs or fewer in 19 straight gamesthat's their longest single-season streak since the mound was moved to its current distance in 1893h/t @EliasSports

What the Braves have done is all the more impressive considering that ace Spencer Strider is out for the season because of Tommy John surgery. With him gone, guys like Lopez have stepped up in a big way.

Offensively, Orlando Arcia hit two home runs in the win. Sean Murphy also connected for a blast.

The two teams will play again on Saturday night with first coming at 7:15 p.m. ET. Left-hander Max Fried will go for Atlanta while Zack Wheeler will pitch for the Phillies. Fried is 8-7 while Wheeler is 12-6.

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BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady.

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Ranger Suárez cruised through his first two innings but ran into trouble in the third, when Arcia and Sean Murphy hit back-to-back shots to left to put their team on the board.

Entering Friday, the Braves’ Orlando Arcia was a career .243 hitter.

But based on his splits, he’s a different player when he visits Citizens Bank Park. In 15 at-bats in Philadelphia this season, Arcia entered Friday with a .467 average and a 1.263 OPS. And he padded those numbers with two home runs in a 7-2 Phillies loss to Atlanta.

Each time Arcia stepped up to the plate — or did anything at all, really — he was met with a chorus of boos. Arcia had reignited the ire of the Phillies fan base last week after staring down Bryce Harper during a home run trot in Atlanta. Both times as he rounded first base on Friday, Arcia kept his gaze on the Braves’ bullpen out in center field.

The Phillies couldn’t get much going to combat it, outside of solo home runs from Bryson Stott and J.T. Realmuto.

In his first home start since July 12, Ranger Suárez allowed four runs on five hits. He was lifted after the fourth inning with his pitch count at 78. In Suárez’s previous start on Aug. 24 in Kansas City — his first since returning from the injured list — he threw 72 pitches.

Suárez said postgame that he feels fine physically.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson said the limited workload was planned, since Suárez did not go on a rehab assignment while recovering from his lower back soreness. In his next start, Suárez will start building up to 90-95 pitches.

Suárez started off strong and retired the first six batters he faced — five via the strikeout. But he started to struggle in the third inning. Atlanta’s first two hits of the game were back-to-back homers from Arcia and Sean Murphy in the third, both smoked to left field.

“In the third inning there, they put 26 pitches on him,” Thomson said. “I think it kind of took its toll on him. The two home runs were just missed locations, just balls that leaked back out over the plate, and they put good swings on them.”

» READ MORE: Taijuan Walker hopes his move to the Phillies’ bullpen can help him carve out a postseason role

The Braves added two more runs in the fourth inning on three hits and a walk.

“I think there were a couple pitches left right in the middle of the zone,” Suárez said through a team interpreter. “I think I made a couple mistakes, and that changed the whole dynamic of the game.”

Suárez said he thought his curveball and changeup were working well, but he had difficulty locating his cutter. He only induced one swing-and-miss with the pitch.

The Braves have won all three of pitcher Reynaldo López’s starts against the Phillies this season. On Friday, López had six strikeouts and only allowed four hits. But Thomson saw improvements.

“Our at-bats tonight were better than the other two games,” he said. “A lot less chase. I thought we put good at-bats on him, got his pitch count up, and got him out after six [innings].”

Two of those hits were doubles from Harper, who had a solid offensive night overall. Harper used the entire field, pulling the ball down the left field line in the first inning and lining it to right in the third. Both times, however, he was stranded at second.

“I think we punched out a little too much tonight against [López],” Harper said. “When you chase that curveball or that slider out of the zone, it kind of sets up everything else for him. So we’ve got to do a better job of getting him in the zone.”

» READ MORE: Re-ranking our top 10 Phillies prospects as their seasons end, and what’s next for each in 2025

Max Lazar pitched the sixth inning. His streak of seven scoreless appearances to start his MLB career come to an end with Arcia’s second homer of the night, a two-out solo shot to center field. Murphy then drew a walk and was driven home by a double from Gio Urshela.

Atlanta tacked on another run off Yunior Marte in the seventh. Matt Olson nearly scored another on a wild pitch, but Realmuto recovered the ball in time and made the out at the plate.

The Phillies showed some signs of life in the eighth inning, with singles from Harper and Stott, but Realmuto grounded out to end the rally. Austin Hays popped out, and Edmundo Sosa and Weston Wilson struck out to end the game.

Orlando Arcia gave the fans in Philadelphia something to really boo him about tonight, as his two homers helped push the Atlanta Braves to a 7-1, season series-clinching win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Both teams stayed quiet for the first two innings of this game and this was actually pretty impressive as far as Reynaldo López was concerned. That’s because he found himself dealing with runners in scoring position in each of the first two innings. Bryce Harper hit his first double of the game by ambushing López on the first pitch he saw. Nick Castellanos followed that up with a walk and it’s a good thing that both of these events took place with two out since López was able to get a ground ball to end the frame.

Brandon Marsh made it all the way to third base in the second inning after he hit a one-out single, stole second and then made it to third on a productive out. Johan Rojas popped out to end the frame and two scoring chances for the Phillies went by the wayside early.

The Braves came to life in the third inning, though. Philadelphia villain Orlando Arcia came to the plate in the third inning and got showered with boos, as usual. The boos did nothing to stop Arcia from taking a cutter from Ranger Suárez that hung in the lower part of the strike zone and sending it a few rows deep into the seats in left field for a solo shot. Sean Murphy must’ve saw what happened and decided that he wanted to get in on the fun as well. Seven pitches later, he did just that as he hit a fastball and sent it flying far over the fence to make it back-to-back dingers for the Braves. The Braves went down in order after that but the damage had been done — in this inning, at least.

Atlanta was far from done when it came to putting runs on the board. After Reynaldo López shook off another double from Bryce Harper in the bottom of the third inning, Marcell Ozuna repaid him by hitting a double to lead off the fourth. Matt Olson continued to stay hot by following it up with a single and then a productive out from Ramón Laureano moved up each runner — Ozuna moved from third to home on the play so that made it 3-0. The line continued to move as Michael Harris II and Orlando Arcia loaded up the bases with a single and a walk, respectively. Sean Murphy returned to the plate and delivered the second productive out of the inning for the Braves, as his grounder to third allowed Olson to score in order to make it 4-0 Braves for the second night in a row.

Naturally, it would’ve been understandable to get a little nervous after the Phillies immediately responded to going down 4-0 once again by hitting a home run on the very next opportunity they had. Indeed, Bryson Stott hit the third pitch he saw of his leadoff appearance in the fourth inning and crushed it to right field in order to put the Phillies on the board. Fortunately for us, Reynaldo López sat down the Phillies in order to get out of the fifth inning with no further damage.

Both teams stayed quiet in the fifth inning, with the Phillies picking this moment in particular to go to their bullpen. By the time the sixth inning rolled around, Max Lazar got the ball and was tasked with making sure that the Phillies stayed within three runs. They ended the inning behind by five runs, as the Braves proceeded to make some two-run magic happen. We’re specifically talking about Orlando Magic, as Arcia thrilled his adoring fans in Philadelphia by hitting his second home run of the night in order to make it 5-1.

Sean Murphy followed that up with a walk and then Gio Urshela announced his return to the lineup by hitting one right down the third base line to score Murphy all the way from first base to make it a 6-1 game. Reynaldo López made sure that it stayed 6-2 by finishing his night on a high note. He struck out both Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos to run his tally up to six on the night and then sat down Bryson Stott with a ground ball to make it another great start against the Phillies. We will absolutely take six innings pitched with only one walk, four hits and a single run allowed.

The seventh inning saw both teams trade runs — Marcell Ozuna got Atlanta going in their half of the seventh with a one-out single that went off of Yunior Marte’s glove and then Matt Olson hit one deep into the gap in right-center to bring Ozuna home all the way from first base in order to make it 7-1 at the time. Olson got to third on a wild pitch from Marte but he ended up being a dead duck at home after J.T. Realmuto caught a pitch that got by him on a perfect bounce from the backstop. After Olson was caught out, Ramón Laureano grounded out to end the inning.

J.T. Realmuto wasn’t done being a baseball pest for the Braves, either. He led off Philadelphia’s half of the eighth inning by hitting one that got out in a hurry against Pierce Johnson. Johnson followed that up by walking Brandon Marsh but he was able to eventually clamp down and sit down the Phillies in order in order to preserve the five-run lead heading into the ninth.

Atlanta went down in order in their portion of the ninth and it was up to Dylan Lee to bring home the win for the Braves. Sure enough, Lee was impressive in the ninth inning as it went good morning (Austin Hays pop-out), good afternoon (Edmundo Sosa strikeout) and good night (Weston Wilson strikeout) to end the game and seal a comfortable win for the Braves.

Now that’s more like it! After the Braves missed an opportunity by blowing a four-run lead on Thursday night, seeing this result was really encouraging. The offense has continued to give opposing pitchers fits on this road trip and seeing them get some scoring done in Philadelphia for the second night in a row was really fun to see. Reynaldo López continued to confound the Phillies and the Braves just put in a really good performance in this one.

Max Fried will have a shot to redeem himself in Philadelphia after having an absolute nightmare start to open his regular season here back in March. If he can set the record straight with his start tomorrow night (starting at 7:15 p.m. ET on Fox) then the Braves could potentially take the lead in this series. For now, it’s time to enjoy taking the season series over the Phillies with this win tonight.