Today's Three Things: Homer-Happy Braves Sweat Out Late Bullpen Blowup to Win Series

The Atlanta Braves looked to be cruising until Tyler Kinley forgot how to locate his slider.

The Atlanta Braves took down the San Diego Padres 6-5 in Truist Park on Thursday afternoon to win the series three games to one.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Today, it was the bottom of the fourth inning.

The Braves were down 3-1 thanks to a misread on a fly ball by Mauricio Dubón, one that contributed to a three-run second inning by the Padres. But Atlanta flipped the script on the game in the 4th.

Ozzie Albies opened the frame with a solo shot off of Griffin Canning, the second bomb of the game given up by the struggling right-hander. Then the Braves got to work - Michael Harris II hit a one-out single, taking off on what was very clearly a hit-and-run with Mauricio Dubón, but a catcher’s interference call gave Atlanta a second baserunner. After a second out, this a strikeout, Dominic Smith came to bat.

And he’s apparently heard all the talk of potentially being DFA’d in a few days.

Dom had himself another Big Dom Smith Moment, popping a hanging 1-1 changeup into the right field seats. And Dom was fired up about it, too, letting the dugout know and taking his time to get into the home run trot.

The three-run bomb changed the complexion of the game, putting Atlanta in the driver’s seat and forcing San Diego to expand their swings as they tried to chase the Braves down.

Today’s Player of the Game

Chris Sale won his team-leading 12th Player of the Game award.

That second inning was rough for Sale, and you could tell he was frustrated about the way it unfolded, but after a brief lapse of his emotions getting the better of him, he locked back in and finished the inning.

Rebounding from a 24-pitch, three-run inning is something that you expect from a frontline starter.

But doing it the way Chris Sale did? That’s special.

Sale finished this game with six innings of three-run ball, striking out eleven against just one walk. After that second inning, he retired seven consecutive batters before allowing a one-out single, and then retired the next five to finish his outing, four coming via strikeout.

Sale wrapped his day with an absurd 23 whiffs, a 43% whiff rate, and did it with a 42% CSW. He allowed twelve batted balls to be put into play, six of them hard-hit, but the hardest was 104 mph and every batted ball over 100 mph was on the ground.

The lefty was an equal-opportunity whiff machine today, getting nine on his fastball (avg 96.6 mph, max 98.9) and twelve on his slider, while also coming in two-for-five on swings against the changeup.

This may genuinely be one of the better starts we’ve seen from the lefty since he’s been in Atlanta. While I would have loved to see him come back out for the 7th, already being at 98 pitches and with the organization pitching him more often on regular rest down the stretch, wrapping his day with a 5-3 lead was probably the right way to approach things.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Once again, a baby bullpen blowup.

Dylan Dodd got the ball for the seventh behind Sale and was perfectly fine, striking out one in an otherwise uneventful inning. But with the lead now 6-3 after Drake Baldwin’s solo shot in the bottom of the 7th, Tyler Kinley came out for the 8th and the heart of San Diego’s order.

It wasn’t a three-run lead for long.

Kinley gave up a one-out hard-hit single to Manny Machado, which in and of itself isn’t that unusual - Machado’s terrorized the Braves both in this series and his career. But Knley then followed that up with perhaps the worst slider location of the year on a 0-2 pitch to Ty France, who obliterated the ball for a two-run home run to bring the game within one.

Atlanta quickly rushed Danny Young’s warm-up and, after Kinley got a fly out from Xander Bogaerts, made the change for the final out of the inning.

Kinley now has eight home runs allowed in 35.2 innings pitched this season, the same number as Chris Sale in his 111 innings.

While the Braves aren’t exactly hurting for leverage arms at the moment, especially once Robert Suarez returns in a few weeks from his elbow inflammation, not being able to trust the lower-leverage arms is having noticeable impacts on the bullpen’s workload. Raisel Iglesias had to pitch in both of the last two games despite Atlanta entering Wednesday’s 9th inning with a six-run lead and today’s 8th inning with a three-run lead.

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 are off to Baltimore for three games versus the Orioles in iconic Camden Yards. Atlanta has announced their starters as Grant Holmes (Friday), Bryce Elder (Saturday), and Reynaldo López (Sunday). While the Orioles have yet to officially submit their starters, the corresponding matchups line up to be Trevor Rogers, Brandon Young, and Shane Baz.