Today's Three Things: Atlanta survives a wild series opener in Cincinnati
The 8th inning was a demonstration of the extreme emotions baseball can present
The Atlanta Braves managed to come out on top of a wild series opener against the Cincinnati Reds, winning 12-11 in ten innings in Great American Ball Park on Thursday night.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The top of the 10th inning for the Braves.
Tied at 11 and with the…not fleet of foot Matt Olson on second base as the “Manfred Man”, the Braves managed to drive him in without recording a hit. Austin Riley gave a fastball a ride to right-center, hitting it 102.7 mph and almost 350 feet - just far enough where Will Benson couldn’t get it back in quick enough to prevent Olson from advancing to third base. Marcell Ozuna, who many didn’t expect to still be on the team after today’s trade deadline (more on that in the morning), worked a full count before poking a flyball out to right field, deep enough for Olson to score from third.
Raisel Iglesias, another player we didn’t expect to still be on the team after the trade deadline, finished off the game with a perfect tenth inning for his 13th save of the year.
Today’s Player of the Game
With all due respect to Carlos Carrasco, we’re giving this to Ozzie Albies.
(Carrasco had a quality start, allowing just three runs on seven hits and two walks in his six innings, striking out five.)
No, Albies went four for six tonight with two runs scored and two RBI, but he’s getting the award for being the catalyst for the big 8th inning on offense. He singled to open the frame before coming back up with the bases loaded and driving in two more runs with a single to right.
In his last fifteen games, Ozzie is hitting .283/.391/.434 with more RBI (13) than strikeouts (11), hitting two homers and stealing two bases. We’ve speculated that he might be seeing a surge in power now that he’s farther away from last year’s broken wrist, and if so, it bodes well for the competitiveness of the lineup in 2026.
What You’ll Be Talking About
The rollercoaster of emotions that was the 8th inning.
The Braves sent thirteen batters to the plate in the top of the 8th, scoring eight runs on eight hits (and doing it without a homer, to boot). They faced three different Reds relievers in the frame, victimizing Sam Moll (3H, 4ER, 1 out) and Lyon Richardson (3H, 2ER, no outs) before Brent Suter got Cincinnati out of it.
The Reds sent twelve batters to the plate in the bottom of the 8th, scoring eight runs on eight hits (with two of them being homers). They faced three Braves relievers in the frame, victimizing Dane Dunning (5H, 5ER, no outs) and Dylan Lee (3H, 3ER, 2 outs) before Pierce Johnson got Atlanta out of it.
Seriously - look at this win probability chart.
Not trying to steal valor from Sarah Langs here, but what a rollercoaster. The sixteen runs scored in that inning were the 4th-most combined runs in a single inning since 1974.
But wait, there’s more. That was only the third time in MLB history that both teams scored eight or more runs in the same inning, joining White Sox vs Yankees on August 2nd, 2007 and Tigers vs Rangers on April 8th, 2004.
Covering this team is exhausting sometimes.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s tonight’s Postcast, where I went live to break down the win.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves have the rare Friday non-Wrigley day game as the teams play early and head to Bristol for Saturday’s Speedway Classic. Bryce Elder (4-7, 6.29) takes on Brady Singer (8-8, 4.60) at 12:40 PM ET.