In his third spring tune-up, Spencer Schwellenbach issued his first walk of spring, the Andrew McCutchen in a scoreless first. He worked through the walk and a line drive hit he allowed to Bryan Reynolds on a hanging breaking ball to complete the first inning, including a strikeout of Oneil Cruz. The Braves offense showed up in the bottom of the frame, as an Ozzie Albies one out double started a rally with an Olson walk, an Ozuna double off the wall, and a De La Cruz single. Two runs scored in the rally before Michael Harris stuck out to end the inning. Schwellenbach struck out the side in the second, but suffered from some death by a thousand cuts in the third, after the bottom of the Braves’ order came up empty in the second. Four Pirates’ singles plated two runs against Spencer, tying the game up again, as all of the batters he faced in the third put a ball in play. Austin Riley doubled in the bottom third, but was not brought home by Olson or Ozuna. Schwellenbach’s outing ended as he allowed a lead-off single in the fourth. You would probably want to see a little bit less contact off of Spencer, but 3.0 innings with 4 strikeouts and 1 walk is pretty good, even if the BABIP got him a bit with all of the singles.

Later in the fourth, potential disaster struck, as Jurickson Profar exited the game holding his forearm after getting his glove awkwardly stuck under him in a diving catch attempt (his second failed diving attempt of the game). He seemed to be in significant pain, but was moving his wrist around some on his way off the field. The Braves announced that his initial x-rays were negative, which is good news, but we will put out some updates when more information is available.

Angel Perdomo issued two walks and allowed a single in the fifth, but got out of it with a strikeout and a double play. An Albies single was the only baserunner for Atlanta in the bottom of the frame. Anderson Pilar got the sixth for Atlanta and allowed a leadoff triple, struck out the next two batters, issued a four pitch walk, and managed to induce a shallow flyout after a long at-bat with shaky command to escape the inning scoreless.

Raisel Iglesias pitched a scoreless seventh, with a strikeout and a single. At this point, some deep prospects (Stephen Paolini, Ambioris Tavarez, Kevin Kilpatrick, etc.) were in the game and were unable to get much going on offense. Pierce Johnson allowed a double and a single to start the eighth, before striking out the next two batters and getting an inning-ending flyout. Pierce got the ninth and got the first two outs, including a strikeout, but allowed two more singles before being pulled for Dany Jimenez, who cleaned up with a strikeout.

The organizational depth came through for Atlanta in the ninth, as Kevin Kilpatrick lead off with a lucky single and Chadwick Tromp reached on an error. Ambioris Tavarez followed Tromp with a single of his own before Stephen Paolini came through with a double. The Braves tied the game with a groundout fro Lizandro Espinoza and Matthew Batten hit a walk-off single.

Join us again tomorrow at 1:05 PM ET, as the Braves face the Red Sox.