BOSTON – This was supposed to be a story about the Braves’ continued resurgence. But that idea disintegrated when Rafael Devers deposited a Pierce Johnson pitch into the Fenway Park outfield seats.
The Braves, who had leads of 5-0 and 6-2, lost 7-6 on Devers’ walk-off blast Saturday.
While the team had committed to staying away from some of its key relievers, this was an ugly loss that came one evening after the Braves had surpassed the .500 mark for the first time in 2025.
“I hung a curveball to their best hitter,” Johnson said.
The focus has centered more on what happened leading into the ninth. Context: Relievers Raisel Iglesias, Daysbel Hernandez and Dylan Lee, a trio on whom the Braves have relied greatly, were unavailable. Such evenings are necessary over the course of 162 games.
Iglesias had pitched the past two nights. Hernandez threw 23 pitches Friday and hadn’t logged back-to-back outings since April 8-9. Lee pitched three times since May 12 and has had a heavy workload.
“We were staying away from a bunch of guys and we were hoping to get through it somehow,” manager Brian Snitker said.
Lefty Aaron Bummer replaced starter Grant Holmes in the seventh with a 6-2 lead. Ceddanne Rafaela laced a double down the third-base line that eluded a diving Austin Riley. Devers singled to left to score a run.
Keen observers will note Bummer has been snakebitten as a Brave, seemingly shunned by the baseball gods. But this wasn’t one of those instances.
“I think you create your own luck,” Snitker said. “He’d been pitching really well, as they all have really. Some of it, he’s a ground-ball guy where a lot of times those guys can go through spots. But he’s been good. There are going to be days, spurts where it doesn’t happen.”
Enyel De Los Santos replaced Bummer and surrendered a double to Alex Bregman that brought Boston within two.
In the eighth, the Braves summoned Rafael Montero. He allowed a one-out double to Abraham Toro and a single to Carlos Narvaez that put runners at the corners. Montero struck out Rafaela before Snitker turned to Johnson.
He was trying to save Johnson for the ninth, which is why he used Montero in the eighth. Jarren Duran’s single then tied the game. Devers ended it four pitches into the next frame.
Snitker defended Montero, noting he’d thrown well lately. But he acknowledged they hadn’t needed the veteran often in high-leverage situations.
“We’re asking him, probably, to put down an inning that we hadn’t had him do. Maybe once or twice. He’s been an eighth-inning guy. He’s done a really good job for us, just one of those games.”
There will be nights when the Braves need to rest their best relievers. That’s understandable, even if one could debate which pitchers should’ve been deployed. But this loss was a missed opportunity for a team that’s already working with a smaller margin for error after its poor start.
This was the most runs the Braves had scored since April 29, a 16-game span featuring an output of five or fewer runs. They hit back-to-back homers for the second straight night. Eli White had three hits. Drake Baldwin kept building his Rookie of The Year case with a home run.
It could’ve been a nice night in which the Braves moved to 11-4 in their last 15 games. Yes, they could still win the series Sunday and leave Boston content. But they could’ve been going for a road sweep instead.
The big-picture view: The Braves are extremely reliant on their top relievers. This bullpen isn’t as deep as some of their other recent bullpens. Some of the names in it now will be swapped out later this summer, if not sooner.
There are internal options. Perhaps they should give Scott Blewett more of a look. He last pitched one week ago. Maybe they’ll eventually call up Craig Kimbrel. But it seems a safe bet the Braves will be shopping for relief help by the trade deadline, as all contenders do.
“(All our relievers) have done a great job throughout this stretch,” Johnson said. “People have thrown multiple days in a throw, three of four (days). Dylan has been used as a workhorse. Iggy and Daysbel, too. Sometimes the ball doesn’t go your way. As a whole, collectively, I think our bullpen has done a really good job this season. We’ve played a lot of one-run ballgames. Can’t win them all. But I do think that everybody has done a good job up to this point.”
Johnson continued, speaking as a leader in the bullpen.
“Iggy has been phenomenal, he’s just had some terrible luck. Bummer has had some terrible luck. Daysbel has done a good job for us holding it down. De Los Santos going multiple innings, Blewett in extra innings. The list goes on and on. Everyone has done a phenomenal job. That’s still a good baseball team (the Red Sox). It’s not like we were playing somebody who was down in the dumps. That’s still a good team. Tip your cap. Sometimes we do that to the other teams, sometimes they do that to us.”
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