Today's Three Things: Braves Save All Their Runs for 8th Inning in Late Frenzy

The Atlanta Braves looked like they were going to win big before the San Diego Padres battled back in the 9th

The Atlanta Braves took down the San Diego Padres 7-6 in Truist Park on Wednesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

There are once again two turning points in this game - the bottom of the 8th and the top of the 9th.

In the bottom of the 8th, tied 1-1, Atlanta got to work, finally cashing in some of the baserunners they had been accumulating all game. Mauricio Dubón started the rally with a one-out single to right - despite Dubón being a righty, outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. was playing very close to the line to try and prevent him from shooting something down the line. So Dubón dumped a single in front of him instead.

And then the frenzy started. Jim Jarvis doubled in Dubón on the second pitch of his at-bat, pulling a slider down the right field line into the corner. Brewer Hicklen then doubled in Jarvis, getting a middle-middle changeup and pulling it down the left field line. After Drake Baldwin drew a walk, the Padres made the switch to Randy Vásquez, who the Braves were clearly comfortable with - the Braves reeled off four singles in the next five batters, pushing the 3-1 lead up to 7-1 before a Mauricio Dubón lineout finally ended the frame.

In the fracas, Atlanta decided to sit down Raisel Iglesias despite being mostly warmed-up to pitch and instead went with Victor Mederos, who rushed to get ready to pitch a now-blowout ninth inning.

About that.

Mederos was either not ready or not recovered from his Monday outing, as he got tagged for three runs on three hits and a walk while recording only one out. The Braves ended up needing to go to Iglesias anyway, who had sat down about ten minutes prior, and the first hitter he saw went deep (adding a fourth run on Mederos’ line). Iglesias recovered to get two strikeouts, of Manny Machado and Ty France, to end it and record his 20th save of the season. In retrospect, maybe letting Iglesias pitch the 9th from the very beginning was the route to take, yeah?

Today’s Player of the Game

With 91% of the vote, this award’s going to The Striper Bros of Jim Jarvis and Brewer Hicklen.

We’ve already mentioned their back-to-back RBI doubles in the 8th inning, but what I think is more important is what they’ve done to the bottom of the order.

During Atlanta’s offensive drought of most of June, one of the most notable missing elements of the offense was both contributions from the bottom of the order and baserunners. The duo of Hicklen and Jarvis have combined to go 12-36, a .333 average, with six doubles and a triple, nine runs, seven RBI, and four walks to ten strikeouts.

And there’s a serious conversation to be had about what the eventual injury returns of Ronald Acuña Jr and Ha-Seong Kim do to the pairing.

Alex Anthopoulos has indicated that Jarvis is going to get extended run at shortstop, and that feels like the correct move. But if Kim’s ready to come back on August 1st and the Braves can’t find a taker for him (even if they pay the sunk cost of his salary), does Atlanta leave him on the bench, or do they option Jarvis down so that Kim can resume playing every day at shortstop?

And for Hicklen, is there playing time available for a reverse-splits guy once Ronald comes back? Could Dominic Smith be the DFA to make a spot for Acuña, with Ronald and Mike Yastrzemski sharing time at designated hitter when Drake Baldwin is behind the plate?

There’s a lot of roster permutations to figure out over the next few weeks, and no one’s currently playing poorly enough to make the decision for Atlanta’s front office.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Once again, poor stats from a Braves starter.

This one was veteran Martín Pérez returning from the injured list, and he looked like he had missed two weeks of play today. Pérez was able to work around a pair of walks in the 2nd inning and finished with only one hit, but four walks in his four innings of work. A very “Ian Anderson-in-game-three-of-the-World-Series” stat line for the vet.

What I didn’t love was the way it went down. We all know that Pérez’s core competency isn’t whiffs or strikeouts; it’s minimizing hard contact. And Pérez didn’t really do that tonight, with an average exit velocity of 91.7 mph and five hard-hit balls, although several of those hard-hit balls were either beat into the ground or popped up so it’s better than fly balls and barrels.

The control wasn’t great, with the four walks, although it’s a bit like a Blake Snell start - he walked some dangerous hitters (Manny Machado in the 1st, Fernando Tatis Jr. in the 3rd) rather than giving them hittable pitches to destroy. And for the most part, it worked.

No, the start wasn't long enough, and the walks look ugly, but if you combine the walks and hits, it was just barely over one guy on base per inning, and he navigated that traffic cleanly.

I still don’t want Pérez starting in October for me, but other than a lack of length (which is absolutely a problem and needs to get corrected), he wasn’t actually that bad for a weekday in July.

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?

The Braves are now up 2-1 and have a chance to win the series tomorrow afternoon. The good news is that it’s Chris Sale Day, with the lefty (10-6, 2.06) taking on Griffin Canning (1-8, 6.67) at 12:15 PM ET.