PITTSBURGH -- Joey Bart came up just short in his attempt to halt Jared Jones’ perfection. But the Braves catcher didn’t miss when given another chance to damage his former team.
Bart’s two-out, two-run homer in the eighth inning gave the Braves a 3-0 win over the Pirates on Wednesday night at PNC Park. The catcher was playing just his second game against his former teammates since being traded from Pittsburgh to Atlanta on June 18.
Bart’s game-winning homer against Dennis Santana gave the Braves just their eighth win in their past 25 games. The two-run shot also backed a strong effort from Grant Holmes, whose five scoreless innings went toe-to-toe against Jones’ dominant stretch against Atlanta’s offense.
Jones registered eight strikeouts and retired each of the 18 batters he faced over a season-high six innings. The Pirates starter was pulled because he hadn’t completed more than five innings this season. In fact, he had completed less than five innings in seven of the eight starts previous to Wednesday. The Pirates are easing him back from the internal brace procedure he underwent last year to repair a damaged UCL in his right elbow.
Mauricio Dubón had a 100.4 mph groundout in the third, but the only other hard-hit ball against Jones was Bart’s 392-foot fly ball that Bryan Reynolds caught with his arm above the left-center-field wall. Per Statcast, the ball would have been a home run in each of MLB’s other 29 ballparks.
Reynolds was unable to get to Bart’s game-winning home run that traveled a Statcast-projected 422 feet, though, which landed about six deep beyond the left-center-field wall. It was the catcher’s fourth homer of the season and second since joining the Braves.
Atlanta was held without a baserunner until Ozzie Albies singled with one out in the seventh.