The Atlanta Braves took down the Chicago Cubs 6-3 at historic Wrigley Field on Tuesday night to even up the series at one game apiece.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The top of the seventh.
Atlanta had finally gotten on the board an inning prior, with Ronald Acuña Jr. jumping on Cubs starter Kevin Gausman and knocking him from the game with a two-run shot to left-center.
But trailing still 3-2 or the seventh and facing reliever Jacob Webb (old friend alert), the Braves were looking to do more.
Austin Riley led off the inning with a walk, taking an outside curveball and several heaters up or outside without taking the bat off his shoulder. After Mike Yastrzemski lost a short battle with Webb, popping out to first baseman Michael Busch in foul territory, embattled second baseman Ozzie Albies came to the plate.
Ozzie was not only hitless at the moment, but batting for the first time on the season in the #8 hole. Said manager Walt Weiss before the game, “I think sometimes, change the scenery in the lineup (for guys who) are struggling. It takes a little heat off them when they're not in the middle of it all.”
Ozzie wasn’t hitless after this at-bat, and he moved that heat off his shoulders and onto Webb’s.
Getting up 2-1 after refusing to chase two changeups out of the zone, Ozzie got an offspeed middle-away and got a good swing on it, hitting it 103.2 mph to right-center for a two-run homer and a Braves lead, 4-3.
Brewer Hicklen immediately followed it up with an 111 mph double to the left-field wall, just over the glove of left fielder (and former Met) Tyrone Taylor, but was stranded on second after Taylor sacrificed his body diving into the bricks and ivy to catch a Drake Baldwin fly ball.
Today’s Player of the Game
Naturally, because we threw shade on him in both the postcast last night and on the Braves Today pod this morning, the postcast voted for Ozzie Albies.
Slander works, so write that down.
Being serious, Jake said on last night’s postcast that Ozzie’s whole value proposition is that he’s able to deliver power from a non-power position - his 22 home runs this season are 2nd among primary second basemen, even if his other counting and rate stats are middle of the pack at best. And until tonight, he hasn’t been delivering on that value proposition enough.
Ozzie apparently took that “empty power” characterization personally, as well, and came out swinging with a line drive single and a stolen base in the 9th. He eventually scored on Drake Baldwin’s 9th-inning home run, the third of three two-run homers for Atlanta in this one.
This still doesn’t change my long-term outlook on Albies; it’s hard to see a World Series contender going into a season with him as plan A at second base. My hope, though, is that the slander and tonight’s performance fuel a six-week binge that takes him through the end of the postseason and (hopefully) a Braves championship.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Martín Pérez, tonight’s winning pitcher.
Pérez was his usual steady self, pitching six innings with three runs (two earned) on five hits and four walks. He only struck out two, but that’s also not his game. The contract management, which is his game, was excellent: An average exit velocity of just 86.8 mph and only six hard-hit balls out of 22 put into play.
And he got strikeouts when it matters, with one of the two coming against likely NL Most Valuable Player Pete Crow-Armstrong, who was 0-4 against Pérez and hitless in his five total ABs tonight.
Pérez’s win tonight was the 100th for his career, a realization that had a profound effect on the Venezuelan lefty. “It’s not easy, especially where I come from,” he told The Athletic’s Jesús Cano. “To have a chance to be on that list, it’s a lot for me, man. This is for my family, too. For all the people in Venezuela - they’ve been supporting me all my career, and this is for them, too.”
I’m convinced that home or away, Pèrez needs to be Atlanta’s game three starter in October. He’s too good at ‘taking the sting out of the swing’ to be relegated to some sort of bullpen role in October. Grant Holmes or AJ Smith-Shawver can piggyback with him, bridging to Didier Fuentes (who threw two scoreless, hitless innings tonight) and the rest of the Braves bullpen.
What You’ll Be Talking About 2: Electric Boogaloo
Can you just stomp on someone’s hand at first base now?
Brewer Hicklen walked in the 9th inning and then, trying to get back to avoid being picked off at first base, was ruled out on a Cubs video review.
Hicklen made this play too close and that’s ultimately the issue here, but it sure looks like he would have been safe had first baseman Michael Busch not stomped on his hand. You can see the hand just…stop when Busch gets weight on it, not completing the stretch to first base until after he’s been tagged and Busch moves his spikes.
For the record, I don’t believe this was intentional by Busch to step on Hicklen - I do think it was intentional by Busch to step between Hicklen and the bag, although I don’t believe it was obstruction by blocking the bag because he had the ball when his foot came down in the base path.
But if you can’t push a player off the base and then tag them out, why can you physically stop them from touching the bag through an act that’s not part of the tag? I’d understand if it was the glove coming down between Hicklen’s hand and the bag, because that’s the act of making the tag. Why is stepping on their hand and physically preventing them from reaching the bag before you tag them okay?
At the end of the day, the booth didn’t question it and so perhaps I’m overthinking it, or perhaps I’m worried about news of an injury to Hicklen tomorrow and pre-catastrophizing. It just seems odd, and like we need to tell Matt Olson to start stomping on baserunners’ hands.
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?
Atlanta’s going to try and win the series on Wednesday night, with youngster JR Ritchie (1-2, 4.50 ERA) taking on lefty Shota Imanaga (10-10, 3.88 ERA) at 7:40 PM ET.