IWOTR, but IWACF. Darius Vines did something that, before last night, no visiting pitcher had ever done. He pitched at least 6 innings and gave up 2 runs or less in a major league debut at either Mile High Stadium or Coors Field. He was, deservedly, the first story of the night. More specifically the line was 6 IP, 4H, 1 BB, 1 HBP, 5 K, 2 R, 2 ER. He threw 82 pitches and 54 were strikes. And yes, these are not the Blake Street Bullies of Larry Walker, Andres Galarraga, and Dante Bichette. However, Denver is a place where offenses go to surge and pitchers go to wither. All hail Darius of the Vines.

With a left hander on the mound, Snit decided to let Kevin Pillar play. That turned out good when he hit a long solo home run to center in the third inning to create a 1-0 lead. In the bottom half, Ezequiel Tovar singled to drive in Alan Trejo (who had walked and stolen second) to tie it. That was one of Darius two allowed.

In the 4th, IWOTR’s defense decided to help the Braves cause. lead off single by Austin Riley and followed by a Matt Olson single put the Braves in business. Then, Marcel Ozuna rolled one almost right at the shortstop that looked like a double play ball, but the same Ezequiel Tovar let his arm perform like it came from the valley of the dry bones and threw very wide of second. The ball rolled over around the right field line and when it all ended, Riley was in, Olson was on 3, and Ozuna was on 2. A Travis d’Arnaud ground ball got Olson home, but that was it in the 4th. The Braves would hold a lead until the end.

Another point of note was a great sliding catch by Ronald Acuna, Jr. in the 5th. Ho hum, 2 Braves homers in the 6th made it 6 to 1. Then, single, SB, single made it 7 to 1 and Vines came back out. Vines gave up a single and double and sacrifice fly for his second run allowed. Then, he got to hit the showers.

Michael Tonkin had a mild Incident, allowing the aforesaid Trejo to hit a solo homer and that ended the scoring. He was followed by scoreless innings from Kirby Yates and Raisel Iglesias. Ho and hum.

Heading back to Chavez Ravine last night to have a game around 10 EDT today. 4 game set. Take 3 and the chances of NOT having home field advantage in the NL side probably drop below 20%.