Today's Three Things: Braves rally late, but can't complete comeback versus Reds
The Atlanta Braves had no offense for seven innings before pushing for a win late
The Atlanta Braves rallied late but couldn’t finish the drill against the Cincinnati Reds, dropping game two 3-2 in Great American Ball Park on Friday afternoon.
Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The 8th and 9th innings.
Down 3-0 and now solidly into the Cincinnati bullpen, Atlanta got a one-out walk from Jurickson Profar and a Matt Olson double to put two runners in scoring position with the heart of the order up.
Turns out, it didn’t matter where those runners were. Austin Riley picked up his fourth strikeout of the game on a six-pitch at-bat, where he was unable to hit three fastballs in the zone and then chased a slurve in the dirt of the opposing batter’s box. Drake Baldwin did his job, hitting a liner to the outfield at 105.3 mph but watching Will Benson catch it for the final out of the inning.
They had another chance to rally in the 9th. Marcell Ozuna walked and then (impressively) advanced to third on a single to right from Michael Harris. That extra base allowed Ozuna to jog home on an Ozzie Albies single to center, one that Harris followed Ozuna both in going first-to-third and also faceplanting on the slide. After Eli White got rung on a low ball that was called for strike three, Luke Williams came close to a lead-taking homer to left - being caught at the wall, it allowed Harris to score and narrow the deficit to one, but it just wasn’t quite enough to give Atlanta the lead.
It kept the rally alive, though…only for Jurickson Profar to immediately kill it by rolling over on a splitter away, weakly grounding out to 2nd at 72.5 mph. It capped an 0-4 day with one walk and one strikeout out of the leadoff spot for Profar, who is now batting just .161 in his last seven games and .210 in his last fifteen.
Today’s Player of the Game
This one’s tough. The box score would lead you to pick Bryce Elder, who was charged with just two runs on four hits across his 6.2 innings, striking out five with just two walks.
Give me Dylan Dodd. Coming in to relieve Elder, he allowed a homer to Will Benson on a darn fine piece of hitting - a 2-1 cutter away that Benson somehow went out and got, poking it to the opposite field. After that, however, he faced four more batters, striking out three of them and getting one flyout. The cutter continues to be a weapon and he’s showing that he could potentially be a medium leverage option.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Atlanta’s struggles in the sun.
The Braves are now 13-25 in day games, many of them featuring poor offense. For a while, I thought it was a Sunday thing - Atlanta hasn’t won on a Sunday since May 18th in Boston - but I think it’s a day game thing.
Baseball’s a sport of routines, and several of Atlanta’s players obviously struggle on the condensed timeline. While some hitters are performing well in day games - Ronald Acuña Jr’s hitting .324 with a 1.116 OPS and Nick Allen’s hitting .298 with a .716 OPS, several of the regulars are struggling on the compressed schedule. Matt Olson’s hitting just .226 with a .744 OPS, while Marcell Ozuna’s hitting .216 with a scary .666 OPS and Ozzie’s at .213/.571.
Looking for more discussion about this game?
Here’s today’s Postcast where I went live over on Locked On Sports Atlanta to break down the loss.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves are playing tomorrow night in Bristol Motor Speedway for the Speedway Classic, expected to be the largest crowd to see a modern MLB game (based on preliminary ticket sales). Tennessee natives Spencer Strider (5-8, 3.71) and Chase Burns (0-3, 6.26) square off at 7:15 PM ET on Fox.