Today's Three Things: Braves Can't Get Batted Balls to Fall in Loss

The Atlanta Braves got played by the BABIP gods on Sunday afternoon

The Atlanta Braves dropped the series finale against the Kansas City Royals, 4-1, in Truist Park on Sunday afternoon.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The Braves had two good opportunities to get back into the game, in both the bottom of the 5th and the bottom of the 7th.

In the 5th, down 3-0, Atlanta started a two-out rally thanks to a Dominic Smith single that put runners on 1st and 3rd (Ozzie Albies, who singled with one out). But Jorge Mateo, who got the start at short in place of Mauricio Dubón, swung at a 3-2 slider inside and weakly grounded out to third. Either trusting that there was an ABS challenge remaining to avoid ending the inning on a take or even sending in a pinch-hitter might have been the better course of action over Mateo swinging on 3-2.

In the bottom of the 7th, Atlanta squandered a prime opportunity with a runner in scoring position. Mike Yastrzemski doubled to open the inning, his second hit of the game, but Atlanta followed that with a weak flyout to right, a rocketed line drive to first that was caught, and a pop-up to leave Yastrzemski stranded on second base.

Today’s Player of the Game

With all due respect to Drake Baldwin, who picked up two hits, including Atlanta’s only run on a line drive homer in the 8th, I’m going with Didier Fuentes.

Called on in relief after Grant Holmes allowed three runs in five innings, Fuentes pitched the final four innings with just one run allowed on two hits, striking out four. He still predominantly leaned on his four-seamer, throwing it 66% of the time, but supplemented it with both the splitter (18% usage) and the slider (16% usage). While he didn’t get as many whiffs as I would have liked, just four in 24 swings, he allowed only three hard-hit balls and an average exit velocity of 84.5 mph on the ten balls put into play.

What You’ll Be Talking About

As the kids say, ‘it do be like that sometimes.’

Atlanta was absolutely ripping baseballs in the first five innings, but had only three hits and no runs. Of the team’s five hard-hit balls, three of them were 105 or harder, with only a single to come out of it (and that was on a 95.2 mph Ozzie liner).

Among the hard-hit outs for Atlanta was a 105.9 mph, 30° flyball to left-center by Ronald Acuña Jr. that went 402 feet (xBA .870), a 108.5 mph, 27° flyball to right-center by Michael Harris that went 396 feet (xBA of .970), and a 109.7 mph line drive to right-center by Austin Riley with a .690 xBA.

Per Statcast, Ronald’s batted ball was a home run 82.5% of the time last year and Michael’s was 97.4% of the time.

By contrast, during the same timeframe, Kansas City scored three runs on five hits despite a collective expected batting average of just .173, including a 99.6 mph home run, multiple mid-80 mph singles, and a low-90s double.

The wind played a major factor in it, blowing from left to right and knocking down both of Atlanta’s flyballs to center while assisting Carter Jensen’s homer to right. But that’s also baseball - sometimes you don’t get the BABIP luck and it’s up to the players to overcome that and find a way to win.

For the game, Atlanta finished with 11 hard-hit balls but only four hits, three singles and the Baldwin homer.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s this afternoon’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 starts a new series, with the Athletics coming to Truist Park. Bryce Elder takes on lefty Jacob Lopez at 7:15 PM ET.