Today's Three Things: Michael Harris shines, but Braves walked off in extras

Michael Harris put us all on cycle watch, but Atlanta somehow still lost this one

Jul 27, 2025

The Atlanta Braves dropped game two to the Texas Rangers, 6-5, in ten innings from Globe Life Field on Saturday night.

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

The Turning Point

Although the winning run for Texas was scored in the 10th, the game was lost for Atlanta in the bottom of the 9th.

With the Braves having taken a narrow 5-4 lead in the top half of the inning, embattled closer Raisel Iglesias came in to attempt to lock down the save and even up the series.

He did anything but.

Iglesias got a quick flyout to start the inning, but then walked third baseman Josh Jung on eight pitches despite having him down 1-2 pretty quickly. With pinch runner Sam Haggerty in to provide some speed for Jung, Iglesias threw over to hold him close and then…just stopped trying to hold him. Haggerty stole 2nd on a later pitch in the at-bat with a jump so large that catcher Drake Baldwin didn’t even attempt a throw. A double to right from catcher Jonah Heim one pitch later, coming on a changeup below the zone that Heim went down and pulled, tied the game up at five each. Despite getting through the rest of the inning unscathed, it’s the fifth blown save of Iggy’s this year and his ERA now sits at 5.09. Enyel De Los Santos was given the loss after allowing a single to left, scoring an unearned run.

The frustrating part of this one was that Atlanta’s bullpen was phenomenal before that. After Grant Holmes left after only four innings - more on that in a minute - the trio of Dane Dunning, Dylan Lee, and Pierce Johnson were perfect for four innings: No hits, no walks, seven strikeouts.

Today’s Player of the Game

It’s going to be Michael Harris for the second straight day. New rule: If we’re on Cycle Watch for you, you’re probably going to be the player of the game.

Harris went 4-4 tonight, scoring three runs and driving in two more. He had a triple in the 2nd, a ground-rule double in the 4th, and a solo homer in the 6th. But I want to talk about his other triple, coming in the 9th inning, because the scoring was frustrating.

Harris hit a liner to left, where outfielder Wyatt Langford attempted to make a sliding catch. Watch:

The official scorer took a minute before finally ruling that a triple, not a single with a two-base error. I reached out to an official scorer and he told me that the act of Langford leaving his feet means it becomes a “non-routine” play, so the scoring of a triple is correct.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this one.

Harris continues his stretch of torrid stats since his mechanical change. Since the All-Star Break, through eight games, he’s hitting 12-30 with six extra-base hits (three homers, two triples, and a double). The bigger thing to me is that he’s only struck out four times in that span - he’s not swinging at as many pitches off the plate.

This is probably my #1 thing to watch for down the stretch as we try to assess what this team needs to do to get back into contention in 2026.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Grant Holmes.

Manager Brian Snitker indicated after the game that Holmes would be going on the injured list with what the team’s preliminarily calling “elbow tightness”. He left after only four innings, with the final frame being the one he felt the elbow issue first come up.

There are a couple of aspects to this. The first is that Holmes was already at a career-high in innings with two months of the season remaining; his four innings tonight give him 115 on the season, while he threw a combined 109.1 between the minors and majors last year. I had him projected for around 150 total this year, but the injury obviously has scuttled many of those plans at this point. Even if he avoids serious injury, I expect the Braves to take their time with his rest and rehab; he might not pitch again this season.

The other aspect of this is the accumulated effect on Atlanta’s rotation. This is now all five Opening Day starters on the injured list at the same time, with Holmes joining Chris Sale (ribcage), Spencer Schwellenbach (elbow), AJ Smith-Shawver (UCL Tear), and Reynaldo López (shoulder). I find it hard to believe that any team could survive this volume of losses to their rotation, but with the offense that Atlanta’s been pairing those pitchers with, this should finally erase any discussion of the Braves potentially doing anything down the stretch to attempt to qualify for October baseball.

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 loss. We actually get the Holmes news sometime towards the end of the second segment, so that was fun to react in real time to the info.