Today's Three Things: Braves Squander Sweep Opportunity, Lose Finale To Toronto
Atlanta's bats were strangely quiet tonight and the pitching was a bit off, preventing the Braves from sweeping the Blue Jays
The Atlanta Braves dropped their series finale to the Toronto Blue Jays 7-2 in Truist Park on Thursday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The third inning, for both teams.
For Toronto, they were looking to finally get on the board against Chris Sale after getting runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs in the first inning and coming away with nothing. The second crack at it would prove to be more fruitful; the Blue Jays saw Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit a one-out double and then three singles (plus a random HBP) would see three Toronto runners come across the plate.
Three of the four hits came against in-zone fastballs, while the fourth was a changeup. It was a tough night for Sale and his command; he was getting ahead of hitters fairly easily (17 of 29 first pitch strikes) but struggling to locate well enough to miss the bats of Toronto hitters looking for fastballs.
Sale was pulled with two outs in the fifth inning at a season-high 108 pitches; Didier Fuentes got the final out of the 6th and then stayed in the game for the seventh. Sale finished with ‘only’ 13 whiffs, although he got enough called strikes to finish with a 32% CSW.
But for Atlanta in the bottom half of the inning, the top of their order didn’t have the same success that Toronto’s did. Ronald Acuña Jr. singled and stole second, advancing to third on Mauricio Dubón one-out single. But from that point, Atlanta could only muster a Matt Olson sacrifice fly to score a run - Ozzie Albies flew out, and after Michael Harris II drew a walk and Mauricio Dubón advanced to third on a wild pitch, Dominic Smith grounded out to end the inning.
The Braves would pick up only one hit and not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position for the rest of the game.
Today’s Player of the Game
By an 83% vote of the postcast, Mauricio Dubón is Atlanta’s first back-to-back winner of the Player of the Game award.
Dubón had the aforementioned third-inning single, adding a homer (for the 2nd consecutive night) in the bottom of the 8th. That one was fairly academic - Braydon Fisher left a slider thigh-high over the plate and Dubón pulled it to left - but still a good swing by Dubón.
The utilityman has proven this season that he can be a reliable clutch performer, as much as we can measure that in baseball, with a .391 average and 221 wRC+ in what FanGraphs describes as “high-leverage situations”. But after some hitting work with Hall of Famer (and organizational hitting consultant) Chipper Jones, Dubón’s power has started to come in, with four hard-hit balls and two barrels in the last two days.
What You’ll Be Talking About
With all due respect to the slow offensive night, it’s Reynaldo López.
With the Braves down just 3-2 entering the 9th, López took over for Dylan Dodd and was trying to keep Atlanta within walkoff distance.
He did anything but that.
López ultimately allowed four runs on five hits and a walk, giving up four singles and a double. And I’m not sure how I feel about it.
On the one hand, three of the five hits were 71 mph or softer, and one of the hard-hit balls, a 103.7 mph chopper off the bat of Vlad Guerrero Jr., was beat into the ground at -21° and had an expected batting average of just .170.
But on the other hand, six of the seven total batted balls came off of the fastball, which averaged 95.4 and hit 96.7 or 96.9 on several of those hits. López ended up with just one whiff on eleven swings against the fastball, and given that he’s only throwing three pitches as a reliever (he was a four-pitch guy in 2024 as a starter), it’s exceptionally hard to make things work when the foundational one isn’t missing bats.
Was this a bad outing? Was this a lot of BABIP-induced bad luck? The real answer’s likely somewhere between the two, and it’s likely that most arguments one way or the other will be colored by the petitioner’s feelings towards López.
What You’ll Be Talking About 2: Electric Boogaloo
The Braves allowed 16 hits tonight, tied for the most in a single game with the blowout loss to Miami in April.
As Jake so eloquently pointed out on the Postcast (linked below), it felt like the baseball gods flipped Toronto’s ‘bad luck’ on batted balls from earlier in this series, giving it to the Braves. The Blue Jays were 6-6 with five singles, a double, and three RBI on batted balls hit at or below 72 mph. Conversely, Atlanta had nine batted balls between 94 and 101 mph…and none of them fell for hits. If you lower that minimum threshold to just 90 mph, the Braves were 1-14.
Atlanta’s final at-bat was a microcosm of the entire night - Austin Riley hit a 106.2 mph screamer to left with an xBA of .530…and Miles Straw easily ran it down in the left-center gap for an out.
(Thanks to Ryan Foster for compiling those stats)
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?
Atlanta’s focusing on Pittsburgh, who brings their resurgent offense to Truist Park for a three-game set starting Friday evening. Here are the matchups for the weekend:
Friday: Martín Pérez (3-3, 2.79) vs Mitch Keller (5-2, 4.35)
Saturday: Spencer Strider (3-1, 3.77) vs Braxton Ashcraft (5-2, 2.77)
Sunday: Bryce Elder (5-3, 2.63) vs Bubba Chandler (2-6, 4.89)