Today's Three Things: Atlanta outlasts Tarik Skubal to down Tigers

The Atlanta Braves got a walkoff homer from Matt Olson to take the series and be setup for a sweep

The Atlanta Braves walked off the Detroit Tigers, 4-3, in Truist Park on Wednesday night to be in position to potentially sweep on Thursday.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

It’s clearly the bottom of the 9th.

Atlanta actually had a great opportunity to score in the bottom of the 8th, off of setup man Kyle Finnegan, but with runners on 1st and 2nd, Drake Baldwin worked an eight-pitch at-bat but just missed a splitter and grounded out to shortstop.

In the bottom of the 9th, though, Atlanta didn’t miss.

Ozzie Albies started the inning by drawing a walk off of countryman and WBC teammate Kenley Jansen, bringing up Matt Olson. A former teammate of Jansen’s in Atlanta (2022), Olson knew that the game plan is to blow a cutter by you. He didn’t let that happen, launching the fifth pitch of the at-bat 397 feet into Atlanta’s bullpen out in right-center.

First, from BravesVision and Brandon Gaudin:

And here’s the Detroit call, from the great Jason Benetti:

It was Matt’s 9th homer of the year and clinched an early series victory, something I did not expect after Atlanta managed just two earned runs in Tarik Skubal’s seven innings.

Today’s Player of the Game

It’s clearly Matt Olson, but let’s talk about how he did it.

Olson (and Drake Baldwin) worked really nice at-bats against the lefty Skubal tonight. Olson’s first-inning groundout was 108.9 off the bat and came at the end of a nine-pitch battle. Olson then singled in the bottom of the 4th on an eight-pitch at-bat off of the lefty, although his lone strikeout of the day came on a five-pitch at-bat to open the seventh when he swung through a 97 mph fastball away.

On the season, Olson’s hitting .267/.346/.556 with two homers off of southpaws, while Baldwin’s put up a .341/.431/.523 line with two homers of his own. Having those two batting back-to-back (vs righties) or split by Ozzie Albies (vs lefties) is a dangerous pairing that is virtually impossible for opposing pitchers to navigate cleanly.

(Special credit goes to Ozzie here - not only did he get the two-run homer off of Skubal in the 1st to put Atlanta on the board, but his walk in the 9th set the stage for Olson’s walkoff homer. He’s now up to a .317 average with a .897 OPS through the season’s first month and a half.)

What You’ll Be Talking About

There are two things here, and neither one is all that great.

The first was JR Ritchie’s outing. The youngster got taken to the mat against Detroit, with several of their hitters working deep at-bats and refusing to give him easy strikeouts. He still finished the outing with just three runs allowed (two earned) in his 5.1 innings, settling in after allowing two early runs in the 2nd inning and a solo shot in the 3rd.

The downsides are real, though - Ritchie walked the same number that he struck out, four, and committed a key throwing error on a called pickoff play (with two outs and two strikes, which is an odd time to call that). He picked up only six whiffs, two each on the four-seamer, curveball, and changeup, while finishing with just a 23% CSW. It’s troubling peripherals, but those only count to a certain extent. Manager Walt Weiss confirmed after the game that the expectation is Ritchie will stay with the team to make another start, which would come in his ‘home’ ballpark of Seattle against the Mariners next week.

(Side note: Pulling Ritchie with one out in the sixth and going to Dylan Lee to finish the bottom of the order, then asking Lee to come back and take the top of the order in the 7th, was some great work by Walt Weiss. It feels like the plan was for Ritchie to take care of the bottom in the 6th, but after Kerry Carpenter worked an eight-pitch walk to open the inning, Ritchie’s >90 pitch count meant that he was never going to finish the inning. Reynaldo López came in to pitch both the 8th and 9th, getting the win, albeit while averaging just 92.5 on his heater. Not great!)

The other is Austin Riley. The third baseman put up another 0-fer tonight, striking out twice in his three at-bats. Several of them were not only terrible results but a terrible process, too; chasing a changeup off the plate in the first, following an eight-pitch Olson single in the 4th with a first-pitch GIDP, and then swinging through a center-cut fastball for his final strikeout in the bottom of the 7th.

The team’s already moved him as low as 6th in the lineup, at times, and it feels like more drops are coming, at this rate. Riley clearly doesn’t look right and the team needs to figure it out, fast.

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 Braves are somehow, inexplicably, in line for a series sweep tomorrow. They’ll have to get through premier free agent signing Framber Valdez (2-1, 3.41) to do it, though. Bryce Elder (3-1, 1.95) gets the ball at 12:15 PM ET.