Monday's Braves Report (final edition): tonight's game, All-Star update, pen needs work, more

Catch up with yesterday's Braves Report.

          Nick Markakis opened the 11th inning by reaching on an error and was quickly erased on a fielder’s choice.

          But Kurt Suzuki got on, and he came around shortly thereafter on Ronald Acuna’s homer to right-center to give the Braves a 5-3 win over the Yankees in 11 innings.

          The story, though, was Atlanta’s bullpen. The game was tied at 3 in the fifth, and four relievers combined for a stunning six shutout innings. 

         Not that the pen didn’t have to bring in some suspense.

          A.J. Minter walked Aaron Judge on four pitches with two outs in the bottom of the 11th, bringing Didi Gregorius to the plate as the tying run.

          But Minter got Gregorius to swing on a low and outside cutter for the third strike to give Minter his second straight save.

          Sam Freeman, Dan Winkler, Jesse Biddle, and Minter teamed to allow four hits, while striking out eight and walking five.

          Biddle got the win with two shutout innings, four strikeouts and three hits. The Yanks left 12 runners on, twice as many as the Braves.

          Acuna had no nerves. 

Pregame need-to-knows (Yanks version)

Sanchez to go first, Markakis gives DH at try

Braves need to fix pen to remain up top

Albies trying to hold on to All-Star spot

General All-Star voting update

From beat writers David O'Brien and Gabe Burns/Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Mark Bowman/MLB.com on Twitter

Hot as Hades here at Yankee Stadium. #Braves and #Yankees start a pretty big July series in a few hours./DOB

The Braves have the NL’s best record and the Yankees own the AL’s best winning percentage? So, these next three days at Yankee Stadium will serve as a World Series preview. Right?/MB

RH Evan Phillips and OF Michael Reed are up from Triple-A, with Moylan going on DL and Wisler optioned./DOB

Braves put Moylan on DL for what Snit described as forearm/elbow  soreness, officially a forearm strain./DOB

Freeman and Markakis still account for the NL's two highest All-Star vote totals. Albies needs to hold off Gennett and Baez. But with a few days left to vote, it looks like the Braves could have three players in the starting lineup./MB

Updated 11:15 p.m.

Questionable if either of the home runs hit tonight would've gone out at SunTrust. Certainly Judge's wouldn't have, and Camargo's probably goes off the brick wall. Yankee Stadium very short to RF./DOB

Acuna's error combined with consecutive walks leads to Gregorius' game-tying sac fly. Sanchez has thrown 84 pitches through five innings -- 21 in the fifth./MB

Sanchez: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 4 K, 2 WP, 1 HR. And Sam Freeman walks the first two batters he faces in the 7th to bring up Judge and bring out Chuck Hernandez to chat. Wow. Danger, Sam Freeman, danger./DOB

Camargo's single to begin the 10th was the first hit Betances had allowed over a 9.2 IP span going back to June 8./MB

Acuna's homer of David Robertson was the first by a right-handed batter off the Yankees righty in more than 12 months./DOB

Acuna says he has too much fun to feel the nerves you might have expected he felt before christening his first Yankees Stadium experience with a game-winning homer./MB