Atlanta Braves Mauricio Dubon cracks a two run single in the bottom of the first inning against the Sacramento A’s at Truist Park in Atlanta on Mon Mar 30, 2026 (AP News photo)
Cold Bats Continue To Haunt the A’s in Atlanta; Braves Elder and relief corp blank A’s 4-0
By Mauricio Segura
The Sacramento Athletics came into Atlanta searching for traction after suffering a season opening sweep in Toronto, but by the end of Monday night’s game, they were still stuck in neutral. A game that began with promise on paper, with Jacob Lopez bringing strong recent interleague numbers into his first career outing against the Braves, quickly turned into a 4-0 loss defined by one rough first inning, a handful of missed chances, and an Atlanta pitching staff that never really loosened its grip.
The green and gold put men on base, sprayed a few line drives around Truist Park, and even flashed some clean defensive work, but when the night demanded one big hit, none arrived. The Braves got theirs early, then calmly shut the door.
Atlanta wasted no time setting the tone. Ronald Acuna Jr. opened the bottom of the first with a walk, Drake Baldwin followed with a single, and after Ozzie Albies popped out, Matt Olson lined a double into left to drive in Acuna and move Baldwin to third.
Austin Riley was retired, which gave the Athletics a chance to escape with only minor damage, but Lopez could not quite find the last clean landing spot of the inning. Eli White worked a walk, Mauricio Dubon lined a single to right, and suddenly two more Braves runs were home. Just like that, the Athletics were in a 3-0 hole before their offense had even found a rhythm.
To Lopez’s credit, the first inning did not snowball into a total disaster. After that early storm, he settled in and kept the Braves from blowing the game open. Acuna singled and swiped a bag in the second, but Lopez worked around it. He got through the third without damage, then caught a break in the fourth after Acuna walked again and was picked off and erased trying for second on a sharp play involving Shea Langeliers and Jacob Wilson.
That moment felt like a possible hinge in the game. Wilson, who was celebrating his 24th birthday, helped create one of the A’s cleanest defensive sequences of the night, and for a brief stretch the Athletics looked like they might still punch back.
The problem was Bryce Elder was not in a charitable mood. The Athletics did put traffic on the bases against him, but they never found the follow-through. Carlos Cortes doubled in the third, only to be stranded. In the fourth, Tyler Soderstrom and Brent Rooker hit back-to-back singles with one out, which gave the inning some real pulse, but Jacob Wilson flew out and Lawrence Butler, (playing in front of his home crowd for the first time in his Major League career) followed with another fly ball to center.
In the fifth, Cortes walked with two down, then Nick Kurtz struck out looking. By then, the pattern had become obvious. The Athletics were not lifeless, but they were incomplete. One batter reached, two reached, then nobody delivered the swing that could tilt the night. That fit an ugly early trend for a club that entered the game already buried under an embarrasing mountain of fifty total strikeouts through the opening series.
Elder finished six scoreless innings, and Atlanta’s bullpen handled the rest with very little drama. Aaron Bummer worked around Max Muncy’s seventh-inning double. Robert Suarez escaped an eighth-inning jam after Dubon’s error put Langeliers aboard and Soderstrom followed with a single, only for Rooker to bounce into an inning-ending double play.
In the ninth, Raisel Iglesias got a little help from the Braves defense when Jacob Wilson reached on another Dubon error, then Butler grounded into a replay-reviewed double play that snuffed out the last bit of daylight.
For the Athletics, the final line told a frustratingly familiar story. Seven hits, no runs, and too many innings that ended a little too quietly. There were moments to like: Lopez recovered well after the early punch, Wilson helped engineer a slick pickoff play on his birthday, and the bullpen mostly kept the game within reach until the eighth. But the offense never landed its counterpunch, and in a season-opening road swing already heavy with miles, the Braves made sure the Athletics kept carrying that weight a little longer.
The A’s will meet up again with the Braves tomorrow for Game 2 at 4:15pm PDT
Costa Rican-born Mauricio Segura has covered sports in the Bay Area since 2001 for various magazines and newspapers, as well as his own publication, The Golden Bay Times. 2026 marks his 15th season covering Athletics baseball.
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