{"id":880275,"date":"2026-09-02T04:08:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T04:08:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/880275\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T04:08:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T04:08:34","slug":"yohandy-morales-homers-in-mlb-debut-as-nationals-top-braves-9-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/880275\/","title":{"rendered":"Yohandy Morales homers in MLB debut as Nationals top Braves 9-5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (AP)  Yohandy Morales homered in his first major league game and Jared Simpson earned the win in relief in his own debut, helping the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/mlb\/teams\/WAS\/washington-nationals\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Nationals<\/a> beat the <a class=\"Annotation-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/mlb\/teams\/ATL\/atlanta-braves\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> 9-5 on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>The Nationals called up Morales and Simpson before the game, with major league rosters expanding from 26 to 28. After striking out his first time up, Morales hit a solo shot in the third inning. Simpson (1-0) entered in the fifth with Washington up 5-2 and induced a double play and a flyout after inheriting a first-and-second, nobody-out situation.<\/p>\n<p>Then he worked two more perfect innings.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old Morales, who hit 25 homers for Triple-A Rochester this year, also singled and doubled in an impressive debut.<\/p>\n<p>AJ Smith-Shawver (0-1) allowed five runs and six hits in four innings. Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II homered for the Braves, whose lead over Philadelphia atop the NL East dropped to 3 1\/2 games, with the Phillies playing at Arizona later Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Albies homered for the Braves in the second, but Washington answered with four runs in the bottom half. CJ Abrams hit a two-run single with two outs, and Brady House added a two-run double.<\/p>\n<p>Drake Baldwin doubled home a run in the third for Atlanta. Morales went deep leading off the bottom half.<\/p>\n<p>Morales doubled to lead off the seventh, when the Nationals added two more runs. Reliever Brent Suter threw wildly to first on a pickoff attempt for an error, allowing a run to score from third. Then Jacob Young hit an RBI single to make it 8-2.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old Simpson had a 2.30 ERA in 58 2\/3 innings at Double-A and Triple-A this year. He faced eight batters and got nine outs, striking out three.<\/p>\n<p>The Braves called up veteran infielder Kyle Farmer and 25-year-old right-hander Blake Burkhalter. Burkhalter made his big league debut in the sixth, allowing one run.<\/p>\n<p>Grant Holmes (9-5, 3.71 ERA) pitches for the Braves on Wednesday against the Nationals&#8217; Brad Lord (5-2, 3.75).<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n<p class=\"StatsincCopyright\">\n    Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) Yohandy Morales homered in his first major league game and Jared Simpson earned the win in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3960,49,48,462,82,3968],"class_list":["post-880275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}