Spencer Strider struck out a season-high 13 batters in eight scoreless innings and Sam Hilliard hit a pair of home runs to help the Atlanta Braves end their four-game losing streak with an 11-0 win over the visiting Miami Marlins on Monday.
Strider retired the first 18 batters he faced. The perfect game ended in the seventh when Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached on an error, rolling a routine grounder through the legs of first baseman Matt Olson. Jean Segura ended the no-hit bid with a line-drive single to left with one out in the eighth.
Strider (3-0) allowed two hits in his longest stint of the season and did not walk a batter. Strider has pitched 16 consecutive scoreless innings and has allowed three hits during that span.
Joe Jimenez pitched a scoreless ninth inning to finish the game.
Strider has made nine consecutive starts with at least nine strikeouts, a streak that dates to Sept. 1, 2022, to break the franchise record held by Hall of Famer John Smoltz. Monday marked Strider’s first double-digit strikeout game of the year and seventh of his career.
Hilliard hit two of Atlanta’s five home runs, the second multi-homer game of his career. Sean Murphy, Eddie Rosario and Austin Riley also homered. The Braves hit just three homers over their previous four games.
The losing pitcher was Edward Cabrera (1-2), who allowed a season-high four runs on four hits, two homers and four walks with six strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.
The Braves got a run in the third on Murphy’s 430-foot solo homer, his sixth, to left center, then upped the lead to 3-0 in the fourth inning on Hilliard’s two-run shot to straightaway center field.
Atlanta made it 5-0 in the fifth inning when Rosario added a two-run homer, his second, against reliever Steven Okert.
The Braves added three more runs in the sixth against Sean Nolin. Hilliard crushed his second homer 458 feet, his third of the season, and Riley followed with a two-run shot, his fifth. Atlanta scored three times in the eighth on Ozzie Albies’ bases-loaded triple.
–Field Level Media
