Today's Three Things: Braves Win Wildest Extra-Innings Game of Season to Take Series

The Atlanta Braves again saw a defensive error extend the game, but they rallied to come away with a series-clinching win/.

The Atlanta Braves took down the Baltimore Orioles 3-2 in eleven innings to win the series on Sunday afternoon in Camden Yards.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 10th inning.

Atlanta was not only held scoreless in the top half of the 10th, but couldn’t even advance their runner to third, thanks to Tyler Wells inducing two pop outs.

But the Braves also held Baltimore scoreless n the bottom half of the inning, thanks to one Matthew Kent Olson. Danny Young unintentionally walked leadoff man Dylan Beavers and then intentionally walked Pete Alonso, loading the bases and prompting Atlanta to take some desperate measures: A five-man infield, with Mauricio Dubón coming down to be an extra infielder on the left side for lefty Gunnar Henderson.

Mechanics here: MLB’s shift restrictions only allow two infielders on either side of second base, so Atlanta put Dubón just to the right side of second base but drew him up onto the infield grass. I’ll admit that I never thought about this, but it makes total sense - he’s technically not on the clay and isn’t being counted as one of the team’s four listed infielders, so by MLB’s definition, he’s not violating any sort of shift restriction.

It turns out that Dubón’s presence as an extra defender wasn’t required - Henderson softly lined a sweeper away to first base, where Matt Olson snagged it and stepped on the bag before Pete Alonso could get back with a dive for the double play.

Dubón went back to left field with two outs, Tyler Kinley came in, and one pop out to a retreating Matt Olson in shallow right field later, Atlanta was on to the 11th.

Today’s Player of the Game

For the first time ever, there was a tie in the poll on the Locked On Braves postcast chat between Tyler Kinley and Reynaldo López, both receiving 28% of the vote.

Kinley got that final out of the 10th and came back for the 11th, this time staked to a one-run lead after Austin Riley ripped a 110 mph grounder past second baseman Jackson Holliday to score a run. Kinley appeared to be cruising, too, getting a quick strikeout of Coby Mayo and a groundout of Tyler O’Neill. But in an attempt not to hang a breaking ball to Leody Tavares, he walked him on five pitches, with four all coming within an inch or so of the strike zone away.

So manager Walt Weiss chose to also walk lefty Jackson Holliday, loading the bases, for 4th-string catcher Sam Huff. The Orioles have been loath to use the injury replacement, starting Chadwick Tromp all three games of this series, but he was both the last player on the bench and the only catcher remaining. The gambit worked, with Kinley’s 1-0 slider in on Huff’s hands drawing a routine groundout to third base that Austin Riley scooped and threw to first to seal the win.

The other winner was Reynaldo López, who had one of the weirder starts of the year.

The conventional stats were great - 5.2 innings of five hits, scoreless baseball with one walk to six strikeouts. He threw 89 pitches, 56 for strikes, and saw his ERA drop to 3.64. It’s actually the longest outing for López since his very first start of the season, where he went six innings of one-run ball against Kansas City.

But the process with which he got those 5.2 scoreless innings was…odd. After dealing with some control issues in his last outing, López throttled his fastball velocity back today to 92, a full 2.4 mph below his yearly average, and maxed out at just 94.5 today. The lower velo meant that he finished with more strikeouts (six) than whiffs (five), and even his fifteen called strikes only got him to a 22% CSW, well below the MLB average of 28-29%.

But at the same time, he was dotting the fastball on the corners and down in the zone. The lower velo meant his slider was rocked, though, with all three put into play being hard-hit. His average exit velocity allowed for the day was an uncomfortable 90.0 mph and of his fielding outs, only one was a groundball as compared to nine flyballs.

It’s not entirely sustainable, but it worked, and so public perception is going to be torn on this. Conventional statistics watchers will love the results, but more analytically-minded analysts will be concerned about whether this is replicable or more of a fluke against a poor offensive game plan that can’t be relied upon going forward.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Get us the heck out of Baltimore.

There was yet another defensive error late in this one, and it was charged to Ozzie Albies. With a runner on first in the 9th, second baseman Ozzie Albies absolutely whiffed on a perfect soft double-play grounder, allowing the game-tying run to advance from first to third. Coby Mayo would come around to score on the very next play, tying the game at two and sending things to extras.

It was an ugly weekend, with three and a half defensive errors from Atlanta and two from Baltimore. All three games were one-run contests, two going to extras, and the two bullpens combined to be charged with three blown saves and twelve runs (only six earned).

The offenses aren’t getting off the hook, either. The two teams combined to go 10-55 with runners in scoring position, stranding 55 on base.

Despite the struggles, Walt Weiss said after the game there were positive takeaways, citing the team’s ability to overcome a bad play or sequence to still win. “I talk about gritty wins; that’s another gritty win. We’ve had several of those recently […] It’s going to serve us well in the long run. You make deposits into the ‘bank of mental toughness’ when you do things like that.”

“It hardens you.”

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 off to New York, where they’re hopeful they’ll get outfielder Ronald Acuña back for this series versus the Mets. Both teams have announced their starters for the series:

Mon: Martín Pérez vs LH Zac Thornton
Tue: Chris Sale vs Christian Scott
Wed: Grant Holmes vs Sean Manaea

Games one and two are at 7:10, while Wednesday’s finale is at 1:10 PM.