Today's Three Things: Atlanta's Pitching Falters Late in Loss
The Atlanta Braves stuck with JR Ritchie a bit too long, allowing Seattle to mash their way into a lead and a series-opening win
The Atlanta Braves dropped their series opener against the Seattle Mariners 5-4 in T-Mobile Park on Monday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Let’s talk about Walt Weiss’ decision to stick with JR Ritchie in the 6th inning.
Ritchie entered the frame closing in on 90 pitches and with four walks already on his ledger. The warning signs were there - he loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth on an HBP and two walks, but got out of it thanks to a groundout to first.
Despite the red flags, the Braves stuck with Ritchie for the 6th without anyone ready to go in the bullpen.
Ritchie walked the first batter on four straight pitches, all inside and elevated. He then grooved a fastball to the second hitter to open the at-bat before throwing four more balls for a second walk.
The bullpen started to get up at this point, but no one was ready. So after a mound visit to buy time, Ritchie continued the 6th, facing Luke Raley.
Raley wasn’t content to take pitches, squaring up a 1-1 curveball and launching it to right-center to get Seattle within one run, 4-3. Only then did Atlanta make the move to a reliever, asking Tyler Kinley to come in and clean up the inning. Kinley got two strikeouts, but also walked Mitch Garver on four straight pitches and then lost a seven-pitch battle to JP Crawford. Going to his bread-and-butter slider, Kinley left one in the zone down and in, with the veteran shortstop hitting a ceiling scraper to the seats in right to give Seattle a lead.
Sticking with Ritchie without a reliever being up and ready to take over after the first walk is the first real mistake of Walt Weiss’ tenure as manager. It’s out of character for him, too; his early track record has been aggressive bullpen moves. We found out after the game that Atlanta was working a bit shorthanded - Dylan Lee and Didier Fuentes were unavailable, while long man Martín Pérez was being held out for a potential start later in this series. It’s largely a cascade problem from Spencer Strider’s short start on Sunday and the workload it thrust on the pen.
Speaking of mistakes, Aaron Bummer took over for the 7th inning and showed that he absolutely does not have it anymore. Throwing barely 90 mph, he gave up a double to Josh Naylor and after a hard-hit flyout, a pinch-hit single to Rob Refsnyder put runners on the corners with only one out. Bummer then loaded the bases via a walk before recording a strikeout. Carlos Carrasco then entered to relieve Bummer, getting a soft lineout to keep Bummer’s ERA clean.
It’s evident that Bummer just doesn’t have it anymore, and it’s a tough ask for a World Series contender to carry him as its second leverage lefty out of the pen. The Braves need to figure something else out, whether it’s newly-released free agent Andrew Chafin or a trade acquisition.
Today’s Player of the Game
Austin Riley was the only Braves starter that had multiple hits tonight, going 2-4 with a homer, but we’re going with a milestone for Matt Olson. Oly hit his 300th home run tonight as part of Atlanta’s three-homer 6th inning. He said after the game that it was a “great milestone” and that he did get the ball back (special credit goes to Mariners centerfielder Julio Rodriguez here), but that it would have been a little sweeter had the team gotten the win.
Olson also made several impressive plays around the bag, including an unassisted double play on a liner from the bat of Josh Naylor.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Atlanta’s offense.
Atlanta finished with four home runs, which will get a lot of the attention in this one, but I want to discuss Process over Results.
Mariners starter Logan Gilbert allowed 19 balls to be put into play and 11 of them were over 100 mph. His average exit velocity allowed tonight was 96.9 mph, above the 95 mph threshold that constitutes a hard-hit ball. Eight of the nine Braves starters finished with at least one hard-hit ball, with #9 hitter Jorge Mateo being the only exception, and each of the top five hitters in the order had either two or three (Mauricio Dubón, Austin Riley).
One of the problems here is that Atlanta drew only two walks tonight, so all four homers were solo shots, but it’s not too often a team will have 18 hard-hit balls and an expected batting average of .316 and lose the game.
If the Braves keep doing this on offense, they’ll be absolutely fine - even if they don’t add in some more walks, it’s likely that they come out of 18 hard-hit balls with more hits than they had tonight.
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 looking to even up the series with their surprise Cy Young candidate on the mound. Bryce Elder (3-1, 1.88) gets the ball opposite George Kirby (4-2, 3.00) at 9:40 PM ET on BravesVision.