Today's Three Things: Chris Sale Stumbles as Angels Take Series Opener
The Atlanta Braves dropped game one because they couldn't figure out José Soriano out AT ALL
The Atlanta Braves dropped their series opener against the Los Angeles Angels 6-2 in Angels Stadium on Monday night.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Chris Sale’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 4th inning.
He started the game off poorly, giving up a leadoff home run to shortstop Zach Neto. That seemed to just make him angry, though, as Sale struck out four of the next six batters and retired nine straight Angels.
He hit Jorge Soler with a pitch to open the 4th, though, and things spiraled from there. A 66-mph Jo Adell single. Back-to-back walks of Jeimer Candelario and Logan O’Hoppe. Another hit by pitch, this one of Joán Moncada, that brought in LA’s third run of the inning. A 92 mph infield single by #8 hitter Bryce Teodosio. By the time Sale finally got a strikeout to end the frame, he was visibly frustrated.
After his first two pitches of the 5th inning were hit for a single and a home run, Sale was pulled with a final line of 4+ innings pitched with six runs on five hits, two walks, and two HBP. He struck out seven thanks to 12 whiffs and a 32% CSW, but the runs are all he’s going to think about as that fourth inning got away from him.
Today’s Player of the Game
Drake Baldwin, yet again.
The sophomore backstop hit a first-inning homer off of the flamethrowing José Soriano - fouling off an elevated 98 mph fastball for the 2nd strike of the inning, he read it out of the hand when Soriano went back to that same spot two pitches later and deposited the ball in the right-center field seats. It’s Baldwin’s fifth homer of the season, tying him for the MLB lead with two others (both in the American League).
Baldwin added a line drive single in the 9th, pushing reliever Chase Silseth into an eight-pitch at-bat. After Austin Riley walked behind him (on a nine-pitch at-bat of his own), pushing Silseth’s pitch count perilously close to 30 in the frame and putting the tying run on-deck, LA was forced to go back to the pen. Closer Jordan Romano came in for the final out of the inning, throwing just three pitches, but that’s now his third appearance of the last four days and he might only get up one more time in this series.
What You’ll Be Talking About
Given that I don’t think there’s any long-term concern with Chris Sale, the discussion likely goes back to the offense here.
After Matt Olson’s two-out single in the first inning, José Soriano buckled down to get out of the inning and then put it into cruise control. He ended up going eight innings, allowing just one more hit and walking no one while striking out ten. At one point, Soriano had retired nineteen consecutive Braves hitters, finally allowing a baserunner on a leadoff single in the 8th inning.
But as good as Soriano was, Atlanta’s offense just felt deflated in the middle innings, like they were going through the motions. That’s not very statistically-backed analysis, but it was another quiet night for the offense that too often failed to push Soriano in any way. He got through the 2nd inning in 9 pitches, the 3rd in just 8, and wasn’t challenged by Braves hitters until the very end of his outing.
It was a frustrating night for both the offense and those of us watching.
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/loss.
What’s Next for the Braves?
The Braves are back to hopefully even up the series. Reynaldo López takes on lefty Yusei Kikuchi at 9:38 PM ET.
Sad evening of baseball. Riley looks lost although his last at bat showed some hope - instead of his usual trying to pull a low-and-away slider (and either whiffing or popping it up) he actually looked to me to be trying to make an attempt to go to RF and he at least fouled off a couple good pitches.
After showing a bit of new-found discipline, Michael Harris goes back to swinging at anything within two feet of the strike zone. Just SO predictable: if the count goes to two strikes, every pitcher in MLB is going to throw him either a slider or a splitter in the dirt and then the only hope is the catcher not being able to block it - but Harris will have whiffed again.
#1, AA should get rid of the old, cheap arms and bring in the talent they have developed. #2, Baldwin is their best hitter, period. DH the man more. Save his legs for (i) later this season, and (ii) extend his career.