Jackie Robinson wore number 42. Every player in baseball wore it Wednesday night. The Braves hit three home runs, Bryce Elder struck out seven, and the Marlins went home 9-10, swept in the series finale at Truist Park.
Atlanta 6, Miami 3. The Braves’ fifth series win. Miami’s second straight loss.
Atlanta Braves’ Raisel Iglesias wears a t-shirt to honor Jackie Robinson Day during batting practice before a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
What Elder Did
Bryce Elder, 26, from Crockett, Texas — considered the weak link of the Atlanta rotation entering this season after going 8-11 with a 5.30 ERA in 2025 — is pitching like an All-Star again. Five and two-thirds innings. Four hits. Zero runs. Two walks. Seven strikeouts. ERA: 0.77 through four starts.
He got the Marlins out with three different fastballs, a slider, and a changeup. His sinker dropped more than it did last year. His slider generated whiffs on 40 percent of swings. Chris Paddack, working the other side of the matchup, gave up the Albies homer in the second and was pulled after four and two-thirds innings with a 0-3 record and a 5.59 ERA that keeps getting worse.
The ABS challenge in the fifth was the moment that effectively ended Miami’s night before it started. Bases loaded. Marlins down 2-0. Xavier Edwards hit a ground ball that shortstop Mauricio Dubón started a double play on — the original call had Edwards safe at first, which would have scored a run and kept the inning alive. The Braves challenged. The replay showed Dubón’s throw arriving in Olson’s glove just before Edwards’ foot hit the bag.
Double play confirmed. Inning over. Score still 2-0. The Marlins’ best chance to get back in the game, gone in a centimeter.
Three Braves, Three Homers
Ozzie Albies ?? (Curaçao): solo homer in the second, 370 feet to right-center off Paddack, 99.7 mph exit velocity. His fourth of the season.
Austin Riley ??: first homer of 2026 in the sixth, a 400-foot shot to left-center off John King at 109.3 mph — the hardest-hit ball of the night. Riley had been mired in a .175/.268/.222 slump going in. He found it.
Matt Olson ??: two-run homer in the seventh off Andrew Nardi, 423 feet to right field at 106.8 mph. Fifth of the season. The game was 6-0 by the time Nardi finished the inning.
Raisel Iglesias ?? (Cuba) — the former defector who left Havana in 2021 and is now one of the best closers in the NL — struck out the side in the ninth for his fourth save. His ERA remains 0.00.
Liam Hicks in the Eighth
The Canadian catcher hit a two-run homer off Osvaldo Bido in the eighth inning — a 358-foot line drive to right that scored Otto Lopez — to make it 6-2. Heriberto Hernández’s fielder’s choice scored Norby for a third run. Bido threw two wild pitches and walked a batter before Robert Suárez came in to end the threat.
Miami Marlins’ Liam Hicks high-fives teammates in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Final: 6-3. Hicks now has four home runs and 18 RBI. He is Canada’s most productive player in the National League right now, and it isn’t particularly close.
Jackie Robinson Day
Every player wearing #42 on Jackie Robinson Day is a league-wide tribute. The Marlins’ active lineup this season has no Black American-born players. That is not a statement of failure — it reflects the broader demographic reality of modern MLB that has been documented for decades — but it is worth naming on the one day the league explicitly honors what Robinson’s arrival meant for baseball’s color line.
Atlanta Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith reacts at second base after hitting a bases-clearing double in the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Tuesday, April 14, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
The player who delivered most on Jackie Robinson Day at Truist Park was Dominic Smith — Black, American, born in Inglewood, California, playing first base for Atlanta. He had already cleared the bases Tuesday night with a go-ahead double. Wednesday he went 1-for-4 in a quieter supporting role, but his presence in that lineup, in a city with Atlanta’s civil rights history, wearing #42, is part of the story.
The international pipeline that built the Marlins’ roster runs directly through the geography that Robinson’s presence helped open. The Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama, Cuba, Curaçao — these countries sent their players to American baseball partly because Robinson proved it was possible. Ozzie Albies homered on Jackie Robinson Day wearing #42. So did Austin Riley and Matt Olson. All of them owe Robinson something.
Michael Harris II stolen base https://t.co/18PyNu371G #MLBFilmRoom
— World Baseball Network (@WorldBaseball_) April 20, 2026
Graham Pauley, the Marlins’ third baseman from Alpharetta, Georgia, played Wednesday’s game 16 miles from his birthplace. The game he plays for a living is the one Jackie Robinson integrated 79 years ago. Wednesday belonged to Atlanta.
The Deyvison De Los Santos Note
De Los Santos, the 23-year-old Dominican first baseman, started at first base Wednesday with Connor Norby shifted to DH. In three at-bats he went 1-for-3 with a single, grounded out to third, and struck out swinging in the seventh. He was replaced by Agustín Ramírez as a pinch-hitter in the ninth. His presence in the lineup against a quality right-hander is a signal that the Marlins are still trying to figure out what they have in him — a legitimate first baseman of the future, or a roster filler for a 60-game stretch before the July trade deadline changes the math.
The Honest Assessment
The Marlins went to Atlanta and split a three-game series, 1-2. The win on Monday was real. The losses on Tuesday and Wednesday showed the organizational limits clearly: Chris Paddack at 0-3 is not a third starter on a playoff team, the bullpen cannot hold a two-run lead in the eighth, and the offense managed three runs total against Elder-Lee-Kinley-Bido-Suárez-Iglesias despite the two-run Hicks homer.
The off-day is Thursday. Jackie Robinson Day is observed. Milwaukee comes to loanDepot park Friday.
Atlanta Braves pitcher Raisel Iglesias, left, high-fives catcher Drake Baldwin, right, after a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves’ Matt Olson, left, high-fives third base coach Tommy Watkins, right, after hitting a two-run home run in the seventh inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
Atlanta Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. reacts after hitting a double in the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Miami Marlins, Wednesday, April 15, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
The season is 19 games old. There is a lot of baseball left. But the window that opened with Monday’s 10-4 win in Atlanta has already closed, and the Marlins are 9-10 instead of 11-8.
International Player of the Game
?? Ozzie Albies (Atlanta) — 1-for-4, HR (4), 1 RBI, 1 run. The Curaçaoan second baseman hit the first meaningful swing of the night — a 370-foot shot in the second — and set the tone. His island, population 160,000, has produced Andruw Jones, Kenley Jansen, Andrelton Simmons, and now Albies. Wearing #42 on Jackie Robinson Day, he hit the first home run of the evening.
Up Next
Thursday is an off day (Jackie Robinson Day observance). Milwaukee Brewers open a three-game homestand Friday at loanDepot park. Janson Junk (0-2, 4.32 ERA) starts for Miami against a TBD Brewers starter. First pitch 7:10 PM ET. Check @loanDepotpark for roof status.
— MT
Miami Files #023 · World Baseball Network · Baseball Without Borders
