Today's Three Things: Dylan Lee claims closer job in tight victory to open series

The Atlanta Braves didn't score enough runs, but Dylan Lee made the lead stand

The Atlanta Braves took down the New York Mets 3-2 in tonight’s series opener in Citi Field.

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 8th inning.

Atlanta squandered a lot of chances to score runs in this one, so Raisel Iglesias took over for Spencer Schwellenbach after seven innings of two-run ball with a lead of just one-run.

This decision in and of itself was a bit controversial; I think Schwellenbach at just 89 pitches could have at least come back for catcher Luis Torrens before going to the pen, but it’s possible Atlanta wanted to give Iglesias a clean inning.

Either way, it wasn’t a clean inning for long. After Iglesias got two quick groundouts of Torrens and Brett Baty (who was 2-2 off of Schwellenbach), Iglesias gave up back-to-back singles to Francisco Lindor and Brandon Nimmo.

That brought up the $700M man himself, Juan Soto, who had already homered in this game, with runners on first and third. In his career, he’s hit .291 with a 1.007 OPS with runners on first and third, one of the best marks in all of baseball.

In response, Atlanta went to lefty Dylan Lee.

And Lee did the dang thing! He got the strikeout in an eight-pitch at-bat. With the entire ballpark knowing that Lee was in there to throw his slider to Soto, he threw six, getting the count to 3-2, before pumping a 97 mph fastball that Soto could just barely foul off and then went back to the slider for the swinging strikeout.

It’s the slider of the year so far for the Atlanta Braves.

Today’s Player of the Game

We’re going with Dylan Lee.

His save tonight, the second of his big league career, was the first for Atlanta since May 16th. That 31-game gap between saves was the longest stretch without a save in franchise history.

But special recognition goes to Matt Olson. He turned an impressive double play in the 6th inning that ended up preserving the win. It cleared the bases, with Nimmo walking ahead of Soto’s homer to make it 3-2. Without the double play, it would have been 4-3 New York.

What You’ll Be Talking About

The offense, again.

Atlanta had several opportunities to put up runs and just…didn’t do it. As my Postcast co-host Jake Mastroianni said on social media, it should have been 8-0 when Soto hit the homer.

Once again, the bottom of the order failed to produce. The trio of Michael Harris II, Eli White, and Nick Allen went just 1-11 with five strikeouts. Harris, and I feel like a broken record here, was pretty egregious with the chase in his at-bats - he never once got a pitch above the belt, only got four pitches in the strike zone, and still swung at will.

But it’s not just the bottom of the order.

Ronald made a baserunning error in the first inning, getting too far off the third base bag on an infield grounder and being tagged out, while Atlanta failed to capitalize on two situations early with runners on either the corners or 2nd and 3rd, getting two total runs in both of those situations.

And attempts to add on later were also fruitless, thanks to some poor plate discipline. Sean Murphy struck out in the 7th with runners on 1st and 3rd, despite getting five pitches out of the zone in a…five-pitch at-bat. Ozzie Albies had runners on 1st and 2nd in the 9th with two outs and struck out on three straight whiffs, including one that was a center-cut slider he swung right through.

Again, Atlanta did enough to win this one, but it’s not a sustainable strategy, especially for a roster that’s now missing Chris Sale.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are back in action tomorrow at 7:10 PM ET. Spencer Strider (2-5, 3.589) takes on Frankie Montas, who is making his season debut after being sidelined all spring with a lat injury.