Braves Rack Up Strikeouts Against Angels to Win Series on Sunday Afternoon

The Atlanta Braves won the series, taking down the Los Angeles Angels 3-1 in Angels Stadium on Sunday to wrap their road trip with a victory.

Here’s what you need to know about from the contest.

Charlie Morton flirted with a no-hitter for a while

Atlanta's elder statesman was absolutely cruising early in this game. Through four innings, he had faced only one over the minimum, with the one batter that reached (Matt Thaiss, via walk in the 2nd inning) being stranded when Morton induced a pop-up of the next batter to end the inning.

Morton ran into a bit of trouble in the fifth, however, loading the bases with no outs on two singles and a walk.

Enter the curveball.

Morton's signature pitch, which he throws over 40% of the time and features one of the best spin rates in all of baseball, showed both its best and worst in this one. Los Angeles scored a run when Morton's curveball hit the foot of centerfielder Mickey Moniak (who entered this game batting just .224 and was down 1-2 in the at-bat). But that same curveball then delivered, inducing a pop-up from Michael Stefanic and a Taylor Ward double-play to end the inning with just the one Angels run on the board.

For the game, Morton finished with just the one run allowed on the two hits, one walk, and one HBP, striking out seven. He threw 82 pitches (51 for strikes) and picked up 11 of his 13 whiffs on his curveball.

Braves lose Austin Riley to injury

The Braves cannot seem to catch a break.

Just one day after Travis d'Arnaud left the game after being hit by a pitch, third baseman Austin Riley was also forced from the game due to a HBP.

Taking a 97.1 mph sinker to the right wrist in the first inning, Riley stayed in the game to run the bases after being examined by team trainers but was removed from the game for Luke Williams when Atlanta took the field on defense.

The team has yet to announce the results of preliminary testing on Riley.

Ramón Laureano was also hit by a pitch in this one, taking a 93.3 mph four-seam fastball to the ribs in the top of the 8th inning. Laureano appeared to be fine, however, running the bases and then taking the field in the bottom of the inning.

Lots of hard-hit balls without much to show for it

I wrote this morning about Atlanta's offense being the unluckiest in baseball. If you still weren't convinced after looking at the numbers, today's game was more of an illustration of that bad luck.

At the midpoint of the game, after the top of the fifth inning, the Braves had ten of the game's eleven hard-hit balls. Six fell for hits - Ramón Laureano's homer and five singles. Matt Olson felt particularly targeted by the baseball gods: He hit two balls at 101 mph, with one being a deep flyout with an xBA (expected batting average) of .620 and the other being a double play - three outs in two hard-hit balls.

Two of Atlanta's three double plays were on hard-hit balls, with the Braves ultimately stranding eight runners and going just one for eight with runners in scoring position.

Atlanta's pitching staff was on a heater

After Morton's seven strikeouts, Atlanta went to lefty Dylan Lee out of the pen. He gave up a leadoff single before striking out the next four batters he faced, going 1.2 innings. Joe Jiménez pitched the 8th inning on a similar pattern - he struck out two of the four batters he faced, hitting Michael Stefanic with a 92.8 mph fastball to open the inning and then getting the two strikeouts and a groundout.

Closer Raisel Iglesias pitched the ninth inning and it was more of the same: "Iggy" struck out one of the three batters he faced for his 26th save of the season; He's now converted his last eighteen straight save situations.

Atlanta's pitching staff did work this weekend - across the three games, the staff totaled just seven walks against 41 strikeouts, holding LA to seven total runs.

What’s next for the Atlanta Braves?

Atlanta gets a rare Monday day off before starting a huge series on Tuesday: The division-leading Philadelphia Phillies are coming to town for three games, and the pitching matchups are going to be pretty fantastic:

Tuesday is officially "TBA" but is expected to be Reynaldo López coming off the IL to face Philly ace Zach Wheeler, with Max Fried matching up against Aaron Nola on Wednesday and Spencer Schwellenbach pitching the finale on Thursday opposite Christopher Sanchez.