Today's Three Things: Braves Win Brawl-Marred Tuesday Night Contest
The Atlanta Braves came out on top, but there will be repercussions of the fight that broke out in the fifth inning
The Atlanta Braves evened up their series against the Los Angeles Angels, 7-2, in Angels Stadium on Tuesday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
The top of the 4th inning.
Trailing 2-1, Atlanta hitters took advantage of their second look at lefty Yusei Kikuchi. Matt Olson worked a six-pitch at-bat, having used his success against Kikuchi’s cutter in the first inning to force the lefty into some of his ancillary pitches, which he couldn’t land in the zone. After advancing to second on a wild pitch, Olson scored when Riley finally timed up a center-cut fastball and singled to right. Mauricio Dubón then pulled a cutter down for a double, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd. Eli White brought in Riley from third with a sacrifice fly, followed by Jonah Heim’s first hit as a Brave being enough to score Dubón and flip the 2-1 deficit to a 4-2 lead.
Atlanta wouldn’t trail from this point on, as LA was held to just one hit the rest of the way.
Today’s Player of the Game
Atlanta’s manager took advantage of a tough lefty on the mound to get Michael Harris II a day off, sitting the centerfielder for Eli White. That wasn’t his only change to the lineup, with Mauricio Dubón playing left field and Jorge Mateo manning at shortstop and batting 9th.
White rewarded his manager for the expanded role with an RBI double in the 2nd inning and a sacrifice fly in the 4th. Harris was called on to pinch-hit for White in the 8th inning and reached via single, making the CF spot 2-3 on the evening.
Weiss also went to setup man Robert Suarez in the 7th inning, given that the top of the order was coming in, rather than holding him for the 8th. After pinch-hitter Adam Frazier walked to open the frame, Suarez got a punchout of Zach Neto, induced a fly ball from Mike Trout, and struck out first baseman Nolan Schanuel to end the threat.
Oh, and Weiss is also here for what he did in the 5th inning.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Here’s the backstory you need on the brawl between the Braves and Angels in the 5th inning.
In his career, Jorge Soler has absolutely destroyed Reynaldo López - in 22 ABs, Soler has a .591 average, four homers, and nine RBI. He then took López deep in the first inning, turning on a thigh-high slider and depositing it into the left field seats.
Then, López hit him with a pitch in the 3rd inning. It wasn’t an obvious “plunk him” situation, a 2-2 count with two outs and a runner in scoring position, but a heater grazed Soler’s arm.
And then López opened the 5th inning Soler at-bat with a wild pitch up and slightly inside, coming close to Soler’s hands. The slugger did not take kindly to it, staring down López while the runner was trying to advance to second base and there was a play at the bag.
Soler kept staring down López as he got a new baseball from catcher Jonah Heim and after López noticed and asked (in Spanish) “What are you looking at?”, Soler charged the mound. (Video is a replay, not the original live shot)
The duo exchanged some swings before the dugouts got out there to break up the fight, with the main disruption to the proceedings coming when Walt Weiss tackled Soler to the ground.
Seriously - Weiss, who has a black belt in taekwondo and has dabbled in cage fighting, went low to take down the slugger Soler and lay on his legs as Braves catching coach Dustin Garneau jumped on top of Soler and covered his upper body to prevent any further escalation of the brawl.
Credit to López here who, after seeing that Soler was on the ground, instinctively took a single step forward before backing off, ending the fight. It doesn’t hurt that 235-lb Mike Trout was bearing in to physically separate López from the fight if needed.
Umpires ejected both Soler and López and we’ll need to wait for the morning on any sort of further discipline, as well as resolving any injury concerns. López, who was holding a baseball in his hand for a swing at Soler, caught his hand on the ear flap of Soler’s helmet, and the cameras caught team personnel checking out his hand in the dugout after the ejection.
Weiss explained after the game that he was concerned about health for everyone, saying he thought about Soler, “I gotta get him off his feet, because he's gonna hurt somebody.”
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, the fight, and the downright bad defense we saw from Atlanta at times in this one.
What’s Next for the Braves?
Tomorrow’s the series finale, with the winner of the rubber match taking the series. Grant Holmes (0-1, 2.45) takes on lefty Reid Detmers (0-0, 2.38) at 4:07 PM ET.