ATLANTA — Michael Soroka won his first home start in nearly three years, Matt Olson homered twice and drove in five runs and the National League-leading Atlanta Braves won their sixth straight game with a 16-4 rout of the Miami Marlins on Friday night.
“It’s very fun to watch,” Soroka said. “It’s the best offence I’ve ever seen.”
Ronald Acuña Jr., Eddie Rosario, Austin Riley and Sean Murphy also went deep to give the Braves 153 homers, by far the most in the majors. They hit 61 in June to set an NL record for a single month, eclipsing the 57 that the Los Angeles Dodgers established in August 2020.
“It’s a pretty stout lineup, and guys are having good at-bats,” Olson said. “When you have that kind of depth, you’re going to have good results.”
Soroka (1-1) took the mound in a home game for the first time since Aug. 3, 2020, when he tore his Achilles tendon for the first of two times. It marked his first game in front of fans at Truist Park since 2019, the year he went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA, earned an All-Star nod and finished sixth in the Cy Young Award voting.
Miami’s Luis Arraez, the majors’ leading hitter, went 1 for 4, and his batting average dipped two points to .390.
Atlanta broke the game open with a five-run first inning. Acuña singled and scored from first on Riley’s double to right-center, followed by Olson’s 434-foot, opposite-field blast to left-center. Olson tops the NL with 28 homers, 10 in the first inning to lead the majors, and 67 RBIs.
Rosario went deep with his 14th long ball, a two-run shot that made it 5-0. The Braves’ 81 first-inning runs lead the majors. Riley’s 15th homer and Murphy’s sacrifice fly put Atlanta up 7-3 in the third.
Olson hit his second homer, another two-run shot, in the four-run fifth as the Braves led 11-3. He has five multi-homer games this year and 17 in his career. Olson, who tripled in the third, added an RBI single in the sixth. Murphy followed with a 459-foot blast, a two-run shot, that made it 14-3.
Acuña drove his 20th homer to left to pad the lead at 16-4 in the seventh as Atlanta’s run total was its most since matching that mark April 12, 2022 against Washington.
“Up until this past month, we just really hadn’t clicked all together,” Riley said. “I think we’re doing that right now, and it’s fun.”
Soroka struck out Arraez to begin the game, just the 17th time this season that Arraez struck out. The 25-year-old right-hander gave up Jesús Sánchez’s two-run homer and Jorge Soler’s 22nd long ball that trimmed the lead to 5-3 in the third.
Beginning the game with an 8.38 ERA in two road starts this season, Soroka allowed five hits and three runs with no walks and seven strikeouts in six innings. He was recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett early Friday.
Soroka was thrilled to pitch in front of another capacity crowd at Truist Park, the team’s 28th this season.
“I thought back to what I put up in 2019, and that was being fearless and letting it go,” Soroka said. “I think they appreciated that because every game I went out there I laid it all on the line and showed that, so that was my goal tonight, and I did a good job of doing that for them.”
The second-place Marlins ended a five-game winning streak and a seven-game road winning streak. They dropped seven games back of the Braves after beginning the night tied with Arizona for the NL’s second-best record. The 16 runs were the most allowed since Miami gave up 18 to Washington on July 19, 2021.
Bryan Hoeing (1-2) had made two consecutive scoreless starts but he got roughed up, allowing six hits and seven runs in 3 2/3 innings. Reliever Archie Bradley was charged with seven runs and seven hits in 2 1/3 innings.
“We just got our butt kicked,” Miami manager Skip Schumaker said. “It happens sometimes, so looking forward to tomorrow already.”
Atlanta improved to 7-1 against the Marlins this season, outscoring them 70-26.
The Braves are 21-4 this month, best in the majors, to match the Atlanta record for most victories in a calendar month, a mark that was set in May 1998 and matched in August 1999, in June 2002 and in June 2022.
Atlanta began the game with a 19-homer lead over the majors’ No. 2 team, the Dodgers.
“That is a really deep lineup, and they can make you pay if you leave stuff over the middle, especially up,” Schumaker said. “They did a really good job against some of our guys tonight.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Marlins: 1B Yuli Gurriel has some swelling but did not break any bones after taking a grounder to his nose in pregame activity Thursday in Boston. He is wearing a protective facemask provided by the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.
Braves: LHP Max Fried, on the injured list since May 6 with elbow inflammation, faced hitters in batting practice for the first time since he recently resumed throwing. Fried still has no timetable for a rehab assignment.
DELAYED
Play was stopped for eight minutes in the top of the seventh because of a malfunction in the lights along the first-base line.
UP NEXT
Braves RHP Charlie Morton (7-6, 3.81 ERA) will face RHP Eury Pérez (5-1, 1.34) as the teams play the second game of a three-game series. Pérez hasn’t allowed a run in his last three starts, a span of 21 innings.