Albies, Acuña homer in 3-2 win

CHICAGO — Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies homered, Max Fried pitched six innings of two-hit ball and the Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs 3-2 Tuesday night.

Acuña crushed the first pitch of the game from Cubs rookie Adbert Alzolay into the left-field bleachers for his 19th homer of the season. Albies hit a towering two-run shot to right center off Mike Montgomery (1-2) in the seventh that gave Atlanta the lead.

Fried (9-3) got the win in the second of a four-game set between the National League division leaders. The 25-yearold left-hander struck out eight, walked a season-high five and allowed two runs in winning his second straight start.

Relievers Sean Newcomb, Anthony Swarzak and Luke Jackson, who threw a perfect ninth for his 12th save, combined to complete the four-hitter. Newcomb pitched oneplus inning in his first game since being hit in the head by a line drive 10 days ago.

Willson Contreras had two RBIs and fellow Venezuelan Alzolay tossed one-hit, onerun ball through 4 2/3 innings in his first major league start.

After Acuña launched Alzolay’s fastball just short of the left-field video board for a quick 1-0 Atlanta lead, the 24-year-old right-hander retired 12 of the next 13 Braves batters. He was replaced by Montgomery after walking the bases loaded in the fifth and the Cubs leading 2-1.

Alzolay tossed four innings of one-hit relief in his major league debut last Thursday and got the win.

Fried walked three in the second to load the bases with one out, but poor Cubs baserunning led to a rally-killing double play.

Catcher Brian McCann caught Javier Baez flatfooted about 25 feet down the thirdbase line and fired to Josh Donaldson, who tagged Baez for the second out. Donaldson threw to Dansby Swanson, who tagged out Contreras as he tried to advance to third.