Today's Three Things: Atlanta's Winning Streak Snaps at 10 After Rally Falls Short

Atlanta couldn't drive in any runners today, scoring exclusively via solo home run

The Atlanta Braves saw their season-high ten-game winning streak snap with a 4-3 loss to the Washington Nationals in Truist Park on Wednesday afternoon.

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Despite the Braves narrowing the deficit to one run in the 9th, I want to talk about the bottom of the 7th inning.

Newly acquired utilityman Brett Wisely entered as a pinch-hitter for Nick Allen and worked a walk. Jurickson Profar then did the same, bringing up the heart of the order.

Despite a wild pitch moving them both into scoring position, Atlanta couldn’t get either runner in.

Matt Olson struck out, leaving him 0-15 with seven strikeouts on the series. Ronald Acuña Jr. followed with his own strikeout, coming in a seven-pitch at-bat where he fouled two fastballs in the zone before swinging through an elevated slider. Drake Baldwin then finished the inning off with yet another strikeout, his coming on a steady diet of four sliders (including the final one well above the zone).

For the game, Atlanta was 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and stranded ten on base.

Today’s Player of the Game

Bryce Elder.

Atlanta’s resident sinkerballer delivered his eighth quality start in his last eleven outings, allowing just three runs across seven innings. While he allowed six hits and three homers, he held Washington to only three runs thanks to no walks and two double plays, minimizing the risk from baserunners.

The way that Elder did it was a bit different today, too. While he had his normal seven groundballs thanks to his sinker, he also picked up eight whiffs in eighteen swings on his slider. His four-seam fastball was a weapon today, as well, setting a new season-high with a 94.1 mph average velocity and frequently being deployed up in the zone.

While his full-season ERA is still an unsightly 5.30, he’s put up a 3.13 to close the month and has demonstrated his usefulness at the major league level. The issue here is that it’s likely he’s out of options next season, and while his ability to stack innings is useful, Atlanta will ostensibly have better options for their #5 starter than Elder. What do the Braves do with him this offseason? Has he shown enough down the stretch to fetch a legitimate asset in a trade? We’ll talk more about this in our offseason recaps.

What You’ll Be Talking About

The team’s effort today.

Several Braves had good games today, led by catcher Drake Baldwin. Not only did he hit a 6th-inning home run, his 19th, but he was narrowly thrown out at first base in the 9th on an infield grounder that he made a closer play than it had any right to be.

Per the MLB Research tool, Baldwin hit 28.5 ft/sec on the way to first, tied for his fastest sprint speed of the season.

It wasn’t just Baldwin, however; Ronald Acuña Jr. made a diving catch to end the top of the 9th inning and keep a Washington run off the board…

…followed by narrowly beating out an infield ground ball with two outs in the 9th to extend the inning and bring up the potential go-ahead run in Baldwin.

(This ‘out’ call was overturned on review, as was the next ‘safe’ call of Baldwin. Rough 9th inning for CB Bucknor)

For as bad and checked out as Atlanta looked a few weeks ago, this winning streak clearly reinvigorated the clubhouse and many of them have put forth extra effort in the last few games.

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 win/loss.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta is off tomorrow before starting their final series of the season against the Pittsburgh Pirates this weekend in Truist Park. The Braves have already announced their final three starters of the year:

Friday: Joey Wentz
Saturday: Chris Sale
Sunday: Spencer Strider

Pittsburgh has yet to announce their rotation, although NL Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes is scheduled to start tonight versus the Cincinnati Reds. Projecting out, the order would likely be Mitch Keller, rookie Bubba Chandler, and Mike Burrows.