ATLANTA — The first 23 innings the Pittsburgh Pirates played this weekend in Atlanta provided little excitement, especially at the plate. Atlanta Braves pitchers Charlie Morton and Max Fried held Derek Shelton’s lineup in check Friday and Saturday, each allowing a single run.

Spencer Schwellenbach continued that trend in the early going Sunday, tossing four zeros to begin the series finale. But in the top of the fifth, Pittsburgh’s bats finally woke up, as a pair of two run homers from Oneil Cruz and Rowdy Tellez paved the way for a 4-2 victory at Truist Park.

“We had big at-bats there,” Shelton said after his team’s win. “The walk in between and Rowdy with a big at-bat. But it’s nice to see us get on the board there. They have good pitching here. They throw a ton of strikes. We got just enough, but it was nice to see those guys take really good swings.”

The big fifth inning received its first spark thanks to a successful video review. Schwellenbach’s first pitch of the frame was bounced low and inside the left-handed batters box, near the feet of Jack Suwinski. Shelton challenged the call, which went on to show that the pitch hit Suwinski in the foot, giving the Pirates a leadoff base runner.

Back-to-back strikeouts from Andrew McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds provided little optimism that the Pirates would take advantage of their runner on. Cruz changed that by connecting on a first-pitch cutter left over the middle of the plate, putting his club ahead 2-1. Tellez extended the lead two at-bats later, when he also smashed a pitch well over the right field wall, scoring himself and Edward Olivares, who reached base on a walk.

“Going in, I was looking at one pitch,” Tellez said. “He actually threw the pitch before and I couldn’t really pull the trigger, and then he ended up throwing it again, so I was able to stay with it.”

A strong start from Bailey Falter, the game’s winning pitcher, put the Pirates in position to maintain their lead for the remainder of the contest. Kyle Nicolas followed Falter, throwing two shutout innings of relief before passing the ball off to Carmen Mlodzinski in the eighth and then Aroldis Chapman in the ninth, who, after allowing one run, finished the job.

“I think we’re seeing — and our pitching group has done a really good job — is these guys are getting better at the major league level,” Shelton said. “Today is a tough day. When you’re bouncing back at 11:35 a.m. after a 7:25 p.m. bus, and then Chapman on top of it, 36 years old with a bad knee yesterday, to be able to finish it out and grind it out, I was really proud. This was a good team win. Michael Taylor makes an unbelievable play in the eighth that saves us a run and gets an out. It was a good team win to finish a road trip.”

On the mound

Entering the afternoon with a 6.63 ERA in June, Falter concluded the month with a strong outing, allowing one earned run on a pair of hits and four walks while striking out five in five innings of work.

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