The Atlanta Braves dropped game four of the NLDS 4-1 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Truist Park on Wednesday night, officially ending their season. Los Angeles advances to face the winner of the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
As usual, it was two back-to-back half-innings.
Atlanta had a great chance to score in the bottom of the sixth, afater Ozzie Albies got a leadoff double off of lefty Alex Vesia.
(Also, in a very Atlanta Braves twist, it was a home run in 29 of 30 parks, with only Truist Park being the one park that would hold it, naturally.)
But not only would the Braves not get Ozzie in to score, they couldn’t even advance him to third base. Drake Baldwin lined out to left, a soft sinking liner that Teoscar Hernández charged in to catch. Lane Thomas, pinch-hitting for Mike Yastrzemski with a lefty on the mound, grounded out to third before Mauricio Dubón lined out to right to end the inning.
The Braves finished this game 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, stranding seven.
LA, meanwhile, entered the top of the seventh and chased Tyler Mahle from the game with a 110.6 mph one-out single by Teoscar. Didier Fuentes came on, looking to preserve Mahle line of just one unearned run.
He was not able to.
Fuentes clearly didn’t have it after Sunday’s extended bullpen outing, throwing noticeably softer than normal and missing the command of his pitches - he landed just 4 of his 14 pitches in the strike zone. The end result was the bases loading after pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and right fielder Kyle Tucker both walked. With Robert Suarez coming on to replace Fuentes, #9 Andy Pages laced a single back through the middle, scoring two runs and putting this one out of reach.
Said Weiss after the game, when asked why he pulled Mahle at just 84 pitches for Fuentes: “When he got to the seventh, I was thinking hitter to hitter at that point. I felt like he (Mahle) was getting toward the end of the line. We had all our best relievers lined up ready to go. And that’s been the strength of our club all year.
You got Fuentes sitting there. He was one of the best relievers in the game. Same with Suarez. Felt like going there at that point in the game. Didi didn’t look quite the same; the ball wasn’t coming out quite the same. So made a quick move there to Suarez.
And you tip your cap to Pages, man. He hit a 100-mile-an-hour heater back through the middle. But, yeah, we’ve been riding our relievers all year. It’s been the foundation of our success. But Mahle was outstanding.”
Today’s Player of the Game
Mahle was outstanding enough that we’re naming him the player of the game. He went 6.1 innings today, allowing two runs (one earned) on just three hits, walking one and striking out four.
He was able to get strikeouts through both whiffs (four on the splitter, three on the four-seamer) and through his locations, with the four-seamer getting ten called strikes and finishing with a 26% CSW on the game. He held the same Dodgers lineup that blasted Chris Sale yesterday to an average exit velocity of 88.4 mph and picked up seven groundouts tonight.
He finishes the year with a 1.99 Braves ERA in nine regular season starts, covering 54.1 innings, and adds a 1.35 over two postseason starts and 13.1 innings.
Mahle will head to free agency at the age of 32, having rebuilt a lot of value after a disastrous start to his season in San Francisco, where he put up a 5.13 ERA in 18 starts. Now that he’s gotten a taste of what it’s like to be in the Braves clubhouse, though, getting a “blue box” for Mahle needs to be one of the team’s first offseason priorities.
More on free agency and the offseason in the coming days, hopefully before the team schedules our yearly debrief with Walt Weiss and Alex Anthopoulos.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Sadly, almost everyone watching knew the game was over after LA took their 3-1 lead, and that’s because of the offense being so anemic this entire postseason.
Quick, if you’re a Braves lineup regular who didn’t completely embarass themselves this postseason, please stand up.
Oh, just Michael Harris (.407 avg, 1.115 OPS) and Ozzie Albies (1.067 OPS) are on their feet? Yep, it’s hard to win like that.
The highest OPS of anyone who played in all seven games, outside of those two, was Austin Riley’s .513, and the only other regular to have an OPS that starts with a “5” was Mauricio Dubón and his .504. The “aircraft carriers” of Matt Olson (.459), Ronald Acuña Jr. (.425), and Drake Baldwin (.358) were downright pitiful and embarrassing this postseason.
And they knew it, too.
Said Acuña, through team interpreter Franco Garcia postgame: “To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. I'm particularly frustrated with myself. I feel like I did nothing to help the team this series. I'm supposed to be a spark plug for my team out there, and I never lit that fire.”
Said Matt Olson: “You know, personally, I had some spots that I could have come through in and didn't. Those things are always going to stick with you.”
But figuring out what to do with an offense that was down to two productive hitters this postseason will be a large lift, and we’ll break down all the possible scenarios as the offseason progresses. I imagine there’s no way they bring hitting coach Tim Hyers, but that alone isn’t enough.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The offseason. We’ll be back tomorrow to break down the series and where Atlanta goes from here.
With all the proposed changes the Owners want to make; I feel like this may the last time i watch or care about Baseball.
Everything about Baseball is worse than the game I grew up on in the 60s and 70s. No more Appalachian League, watered down expansion baseball, only draft college players, International draft ( of 18 year olds)
Too old for this Crap.
Outstanding season by the team. The season was made even more enjoyable by Lindsay’s really exceptional commentary and analysis. So glad I found BT and the subscription is best money I spend all year.
Poor NLDS when it did feel like the Dodgers were beatable. Offense never showed up. Muncie out homered the Braves. In game 5, Braves pitchers walked 3 Dodgers, 2 of them scored. Braves had 5 walks and not one of them scored.
On to what hopefully will be a productive off-season and one that ends on-time. My thoughts on Braves needs. Front office has to adapt to the changes occurring in baseball. The biggest change is the velocity of change. Baseball used to evolve over decades. With the advent of advanced analytics, better scouting and other factors, the pace of change in baseball has accelerated. AA built this team when the prevailing strategy was find guys in their early 20’s with talent and lock them up through their most productive years (ages 26/27 - 31/32). This strategy isn’t holding true. Many guys are declining in late 20’s. Riley is not an isolated example. Braves need to deal with this and it could be tough. The second strategy that has changed in the last couple of years - offense is directly correlated to HRs (hit the ball in the air and ignore SOs). Not true anymore. Braves are going to have to find ways to diversify their offense. And lastly, the invest heavily in top end starting pitching philosophy doesn’t work. RIP to the importance of the 5 man rotation. Pitching depth and versatilty is much more important. Fortunately, Braves are in pretty good shape for this and Weiss has shown he understands how to use pitchers outside of the “baseball formula”. The last thing the Braves need is to chase top end, high-priced SP FAs despite the clamor i expect the fans will make.