Today’s Three Things: Braves Walk Off Rockies for Seventh Straight Win

Atlanta’s now swept back-to-back NL West opponents in Truist Park in the last week

The Atlanta Braves took down the Colorado Rockies 3-2 in ten innings on Sunday afternoon in Truist Park.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The 10th inning, in its entirety.

The Rockies started off with speedy outfielder Mickey Moniak at second base, but Victor Mederos did not care.

He started the inning off with a first-pitch pop-out of youngster Cole Carrig, who was inserted into the game as a pinch-hitter in the 7th despite this being the first of a two-game suspension levied by manager Warren Schaeffer for Carrig’s obscene gesture towards Braves fans in Saturday’s game. Mederos then struck out backup catcher Brett Sullivan before pinch-hitter Zac Veen flew out to left. Nine pitches, three outs, and the runner never even advanced to third.

In the bottom half of the inning, Ronald Acuña Jr. served a first-pitch sinker into left, advancing pinch runner Brewer Hicklen (in for Drake Baldwin) to third. Matt Olson then battled Ryan Feltner for five pitches, eventually lacing the fourth changeup he saw down the right-field line and past a diving TJ Rumfield for the winning run.

And really, despite the Rockies bullpen being almost completely burnt out after the first two games of the series, it still felt odd to me to ask Feltner to face Matt Olson for a third time. I know he’s a starter - he was pitching today because an overnight illness forced them to scratch him from the Saturday start - but as a manager, I’d rather have had one of the high-velo relievers facing the top of the order in that scenario rather than accepting a TTO penalty on Feltner (.965 OPS the third time through, entering today).

Today’s Player of the Game

With a surprising 68% of the vote, Tyler Mahle - I guess I thought Olson would get a bit more than his actual 25%, owing to the walkoff.

Mahle continued his post-deadline dominance today, pitching 6.2 innings of one-run ball with no walks and five hits, striking out nine. It took him only 89 pitches (60 strikes) to do it, being removed only because the tying run got on base in the 6th.

But as good as the results were, the process to get there was equally impressive. Continuing his two-pitch focus, Mahle went 93% four-seam/splitter (83 of 89 pitches) and still got 17 whiffs on 49 swings (35%), including an impressive 11 whiffs/44% rate on the four-seamer. The pattern was obvious - four-seamer up, splitter down, with the pairing tunneling perfectly until halfway to the plate. He mixed in five cutters (all the first time through the order) and exactly one slider, but otherwise stuck to the duo and dominated. The average exit velocity allowed by Mahle was just 86.1 mph, and of his 15 batted balls in play, just six were hard-hit; the only extra-base hit he allowed was a solo shot to Jake McCarthy in the 4th.

This is Mahle’s fifth Braves start and fourth time winning the award, and his ERA with Atlanta is now down to 1.48. He continues to be the likeliest candidate to start game two of a postseason series behind ace Chris Sale, and his Braves tenure indicates that he might work out perfectly fine in that role.

What You’ll Be Talking About

The perils of Dylan Lee.

Atlanta’s best lefty reliever has been anything but his best lately, and those issues popped up yet again. Lee allowed two hits and a run to score in the 8th inning today, with a leadoff single coming on a thigh-high slider and the RBI coming off another slider three batters later. Neither one was a terrible pitch, but both caught more of the plate than intended, and that’s the trend that’s hurt Lee recently.

In his last six outings, Lee has a 10.38 ERA, coming with a 2.77 WHIP and a dreadful 4.55 batting average against.

But with Robert Suarez still being out from his forearm inflammation, going on the third month now, it’s hard to remove Lee from the bullpen for the fifteen days required under an injured list stint for “fatigue” or “shoulder soreness” or any other very real but minor reason that would escape MLB’s policing of the phantom IL.

Lee is the team’s best chance at getting some of the game’s biggest lefties out in October, though, and so if they need to lean on someone else for the next two weeks while he gets a chance to rest (if fatigue is really the issue), it needs to happen soon.

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 have a single-game makeup against the San Francisco Giants on tap, with Bryce Elder (8-7, 3.95) opposite Anthony Molina (1-0, 2.89) getting the ball at 6:05 PM ET. (Molina was the return to the Giants in the Tyler Mahle trade, so there’s a small bit of revenge game potential there.)