Today's Three Things: Atlanta Loses in Frustrating Fashion to Giants in Finale
The Atlanta Braves had good swings on offense without the results to show for it, while hanging runs on Chris Sale with an uncharacteristically bad defensive inning
The Atlanta Braves dropped the series finale 3-2 to the San Francisco Giants in Oracle Park on Sunday afternoon.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
San Francisco’s sixth inning.
With the game mired in a scoreless tie and both starting pitchers dealing, the Giants were set on getting some runs on the board off of Chris Sale, and sadly, Atlanta’s defense saw fit to give them a hand.
Luis Arraez started the inning with a Luis Arraez special, shortening up his swing to slice a ball the opposite way. Austin Riley made the stop before the ball went all the way down the left field line, but the 61.1 mph leadoff single gave San Fran some early action on the basepaths.
Heliot Ramos then had the only well-hit ball of the sequence, jumping on a 1-2 slider that caught a bit too much of the zone and lining it to center to give the Giants runners on 1st and 2nd.
Riley then got a second batted ball, this one a 71.3 mph roller off the bat of Rafael Devers, but the throw was low to first base and not only did both runners advance on the throw, Arraez came in to score from second.
After two strikeouts, Jung Hoo Lee made decent contact on a sinker at the bottom of the zone, shooting it out to second at 88.5 mph. With Albies ranging wide to his left to snag the grounder, his momentum caused the throw to be wide of the first base bag, allowing Ramos to easily score from third and hanging a second run on Sale (this one unearned).
It was shades of the 2024 season for Chris Sale, where he was seemingly tortured every single start down the stretch with Jorge Soler’s defensive adventures in right field.
Sale finished the game with perhaps one of his finest performances of the season, being charged with just one earned run in six innings with one walk and ten strikeouts. He allowed just two hard-hit balls in the entire game, only one of which fell for a hit, and had an average exit velocity allowed on only 77.9 mph. His 19 whiffs were primarily on the four-seamer, which had 13, as compared to the usual slider, which had only three, and his 34% whiff rate was the third-highest of the year.
Alas, he took the loss, making him now 8-6 with a 2.10 ERA. Per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, the Braves have given Sale a grand total of two runs of support while he’s been the pitcher of record in his last four starts.
Today’s Player of the Game
You’d think I would give this to Chris Sale, but let’s go with Matt Olson here.
In a terrible night for Atlanta’s offense - we’re getting to that in a minute - Olson had three of the team’s six hits. He singled to open the fifth, did it again to open the seventh, and then doubled to open the ninth. Atlanta’s second run of the game would come in the final frame, as Baldwin advanced Olson to third with a groundout and Riley would score Olson on a ground ball to first base.
In a tough month for Atlanta’s offense, Olson has been one of the team’s bright spots (along with Mauricio Dubón, who doubled tonight): Olson’s hitting .318/.359/.494 in June, homering four times and tying for the team lead with thirteen runs scored this month.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Yeah, Atlanta scored just twice and lost, but this was not the all-too-common offensive failure for the Braves' offense like we’ve seen so far in June.
The baseball gods clearly cast a BABIP curse on the Braves today. Not only did the Giants have six hits on balls of 82.6 mph or softer, Atlanta was hitting the crap out of the ball (analytics term) with absolutely nothing to show for it.
The Braves had 16 of the game’s 20 hard-hit balls today, but finished with just two doubles and four singles on those batted balls. It was a combination of great positioning on some ground balls by the Giants and elite reaction time on the line drives. Drake Baldwin had two hard-hit lineouts with xBAs of .630 and .580, while registering three additional outs on xBAs of .470 or greater.
Additionally, the Braves struck out only three times in the game, although the last one was egregious by pinch-hitter Mike Yastrzemski: With the game-tying runner in scoring position, he took two called strikes and then once working the count to 2-2, swung at strike three in the dirt for the easy strikeout.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, where I went live to break down the contest (and got more firey than I intended).
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves have an off-day on Monday before welcoming the St. Louis Cardinals to Truist Park for a three-game set. The pitching matchups are mostly set for the two teams.
Tue: Martín Pérez (6-4, 3.00) vs lefty Matthew Liberatore (3-5, 5.56)
Wed: Reynaldo López (3-1, 3.47) vs Michael McGreevy (3-6, 3.12)
Thu: TBD vs Dustin May (5-6, 4.30)
Chris Sale was phenomenal. He deserves so much better than what his teammates provided. The entire pitching staff deserves better. Was sitting amoung Giants’ fans and they were in awe of Sale and Lee. Baldwin didn’t have anything to show for it, but he looked good at the plate today. Absolutely horrible road trip as part of a horrendous month. It’s a long season and like to think I’ve been a Braves fan long enough not to overreact, but I hear the fat lady warming up her voice.
One of the things that struck me watching the team in person this weekend is that Riley has become far too similar to Devers. ( And I don’t mean because Devers hit well this series). I mean corner infielders with large and long contracts that are underperforming them with a lot of years left. The painful question has to be asked: Do the Braves need to do with Riley what the Red Sox did last year with Devers.