Today's Three Things: Braves Rally Late to Walk Off the Royals

Atlanta played a sloppy game but battled back to win in the 9th inning

The Atlanta Braves walked off the Kansas City Royals, 6-2, in Truist Park on Saturday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 9th inning.

Entering with a two-run deficit, Walt Weiss started pulling the levers. After Drake Baldwin walked and advanced to third on a Matt Olson single, Weiss sent Jorge Mateo in to run for Olson for better speed from the potential tying run. Mike Yastrzemski, who was only still in the game because Weiss didn’t pinch hit for him against lefty reliever Matt Strahm earlier, then singled to score Baldwin and send Mateo to third. Having already pinch-run for the tying run with Mateo, Weiss also chose to pinch-run Eli White for Yastrzemski, as that was the winning run.

The speed wasn’t needed, though. Ozzie Albies walked to load the bases before Michael Harris II singled in Mateo on a comebacker that deflected off of closer Carlos Estévez. Dom Smith then sent everyone home, taking an elevated 3-2 fastball 386 feet into the Chop House for Atlanta’s first walkoff grand slam since Brooke Conrad did it in 2010.

UPDATE: Elias Sports Bureau has confirmed it is the first-ever walk-off grand slam for a player making his debut with a team, as well. so that’s fun.

Here’s Ben Ingram of the Atlanta Braves Radio Network with the call:

And here’s the pure, unadulterated crowd noise on a really well-framed Dutch angle.

One last note: Dom Smith had all the right things to say about the walkoff after the game, but one particularly poignant moment was his motivation tonight: He recently lost his mother to cancer, with her passing away less than two weeks ago.

Today’s Player of the Game

With all due respect to hero Dominic Smith, we’re going with Reynaldo López.

Fresh off of his final spring start where he averaged just 89 mph on his four-seamer, the righty looked exactly like his 2024 self. He pitched six innings with just one run allowed, a leadoff homer to start the seventh inning that was the final pitch he threw on the night. He allowed just three total hits and walked two while striking out three, averaging 94.4 mph on his fastball and breaking 97 on multiple occasions when he had runners on base or two outs.

The only run allowed was on the only batter he faced in the 7th inning; catcher Salvador Perez took him deep on the first pitch, a low fastball. While there are some criticizing Weiss for leaving López in to face Perez, it appeared to me, based on how quickly Dylan Lee was ready to enter the game, that Perez was the last batter for López either way. Lee was able to face two lefties in Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone, so his lane was coming up and that’s why he was fully ‘hot’ and ready to enter after the home run.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Honestly, barring the 9th inning, it was an ugly game for Atlanta.

The Braves unsuccessfully used both ABS challenges within the first 14 pitches of the game. Drake Baldwin incorrectly challenged a ball call in the top half of the inning, followed by Ronald Acuña Jr. losing on a 1-0 challenge where almost the entire baseball was within the strike zone to open the bottom half.

Not to be outdone, the Braves then missed their limited time window opportunity to challenge a double play at second base, where replay clearly showed that third baseman Maikel Garcia (yes - he was playing in a quasi-shift) threw the ball to first before stepping on the second base bag. Despite both Ronald and third base coach Tommy Watkins immediately pointing it out, the dugout was late in signaling for the challenge, and it was waived off.

The Braves also saw Matt Olson commit a run-scoring defensive error in the top of the 8th and then watched Michael Harris II get picked off first base in the bottom half of the inning.

Despite the sloppy play early, however, they rallied to win and there were some bright spots. Mauricio Dubón looks like the real deal at shortstop, uncorking a Derek Jeter-esque jump throw to get the out on a shot in the hole, while Acuña had a 97 mph throw home that prevented a run from scoring and Baldwin caught a runner stealing at second with a 90th-percentile pop time of 1.9 seconds.

We also saw several good baserunning moments in this one, with trail runners advancing 90 feet on throws into other bases. While they’re still not getting the base-stealing part of the Antoan Richardson Experience down, the baserunning has improved.

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?

The Braves look to secure the series sweep tomorrow afternoon on BravesVision. Grant Holmes takes on Seth Lugo at 1:35 PM ET.