BY GEORGE HENRY
ATLANTA (AP) — Austin Riley hit a go-ahead, three-run homer off Miguel Castro in the eighth inning, Matt Olson homered twice to raise his NL-best total to 32 and the major league-leading Atlanta Braves stopped a four-game skid with a 7-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday.
Riley followed Michael Harris II’s double and Ozzie Albies’ walk with his fourth homer of the three-game series and 20th of the season, putting Atlanta (62-33) ahead 6-5. Riley has homered in three straight games four times in his big league career.
“I feel like all year I’ve been fighting myself, trying to get comfortable up there,” Riley said. “I felt like I would get comfortable for four or five days and then it was back to square one. I told myself just to go out there and have fun and slow the game as much as possible. Hopefully, that’s going to allow me to keep this thing going.”
Olson had his 18th multihomer game and his fifth this season. He cut the Braves’ deficit to 4-3 when he went deep off starter Zac Gallen in the seventh. After Riley homered off Castro (5-4), Olson homered on the fifth pitch from Kyle Nelson.
“Not the series we wanted to play while we were here but we leave on a high note,” Olson said. “Gallen threw a great game. We were able to score some runs there at the end and have a little comeback win.”
Kirby Yates (4-0) allowed Corbin Carroll’s eighth-inning homer, the rookie’s 19th this season. Raisel Iglesias worked around a walk and a single in the ninth, retiring Alek Thomas on a game-ending groundout with two on for his 17th save in 19 chances.
Dominic Canzone and Emmanuel Rivera hit back-to-back homers in the seventh off Spencer Strider for a 4-1 lead. Striker struck out 13 and walked one, allowing four runs and four hits in six-plus innings. He leads the major leagues with 189 strikeouts and has pitched 116 2/3 innings.
Gallen retired his first 16 batters before Orlando Arcia homered. Gallen gave up three runs and five hits with no walks and seven strikeouts in seven innings.
“I was just trying to mix pitches, get in certain zones and certain counts,” Gallen said. “That’s a good offense. Like you saw, they can pretty much leave the yard one through nine. I was just trying to stay in attack mode and stay on the offensive and keep us in the game.”
K CORNER
Strider has eight double-digit strikeout games this season and 14 in his career. He began the day ranked second to Dwight Gooden’s 17 for most double-digit strikeout games through 39 career starts.
“The last two games his stuff has been as good as it’s been probably the whole time he’s been up here,” Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said. “Velocity, the breaking ball. … He keeps throwing like that, he’s going to be OK.”
UP NEXT
Diamondbacks: LHP Tommy Henry (5-2, 3.89) will face RHP Ben Lively (4-5, 3.72) when Arizona begins a three-game series Friday at Cincinnati.
Braves: RHP Michael Soroka (1-1, 5.40 ERA) will face RHP Freddy Peralta (6-7, 4.41) when Atlanta opens a three-game series Friday at Milwaukee.
