Today's Three Things: Braves Bash Guardians to Take Series

The Atlanta Braves are the only MLB team to have not yet lost a series this season

The Atlanta Braves whalloped the Cleveland Guardians 13-1 in Truist Park on Sunday night to take the series two games to one.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Atlanta put this one away for good in the fifth inning.

Already up 5-0 but with Chris Sale battling traffic every inning (more on that in a minute), the Braves put up a two-out rally to salt away the series. Marr Olson and Austin Riley both hit one-out singles to give the Braves runners on the corners, but a Mike Yastrzemski strikeout had the scoring chance on thin ice.

But Ozzie Albies put an inside-out swing on a 1-1 changeup, knee high on the inner third, and shot it up the middle to center.

Today’s Player of the Game

Chris Sale.

The starter went six strong innings, allowing just one run but otherwise keeping the Guardians at bay, despite their best efforts. He picked up ten whiffs, surprisingly getting more on the four-seamer (five) than the slider (four), and had a 32% CSW.

Most notable was Sale’s velocity tonight. He averaged 95.7 on his four-seamer, nearly one mph above his 2026 average, and topped out at 99.4. Per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, that was Sale’s hardest pitch since 2019.

There was a lot of battling by Sale, as he had runners on base seemingly in every inning. He stranded Guardians on 2nd and 3rd in the first thanks to back-to-back strikeouts, a runner on 2nd in the 2nd inning, runners on 1st in both the 3rd and 4th, and a runner on 2nd in the 5th. Only in the sixth, when Rhys Hoskins took him deep to open the inning, was Cleveland finally able to scratch a run across.

(And it was a really good piece of hitting by Hoskins, as Sale threw a 1-0 backdoor changeup on the black away and Hoskins went down to get it.)

After struggling last time out (six runs on five hits in four innings vs the Angels), Sale picked up the win and lowered his 2026 ERA to 3.27.

What You’ll Be Talking About

The offense.

The Braves finished with nineteen hits, seeing every single starter pick up a hit except for catcher Drake Baldwin (and he still got on, just via groundout.) Several Atlanta hitters finished with two or even three knocks, while shortstop Jorge Mateo laced four singles, drove in one, and scored twice. In a nice development, Atlanta did all their damage while hitting just one homer, a two-run shot from Dominic Smith in the 4th.

The bottom of the order deserves special mention here. One night after the bottom four hitters combined for one hit and four strikeouts, everything was flipped: The final four spots combined for 12 hits, including two doubles and a homer, scored eight runs, and drove in eight. They also did it without a single strikeout, with Atlanta’s five coming entirely from Mike Yastrzemski (three) and Austin Riley (two).

While the wild swings from game to game can be frustrating, for the most part, Atlanta has gotten outsized contributions from the bottom of the order while the guys at the top are getting going.

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?

Tomorrow’s the start of a new series, with Atlanta welcoming divisional foe Miami into Truist Park for three. Here are the matchups for the series:

Monday (7:15): Grant Holmes vs Eury Pérez
Tuesday (7:15): Reynaldo López vs Max Meyer
Wednesday (7:15): Bryce Elder vs Chris Paddack