Today’s Three Things: Ozzie Albies Accounts for Almost Every Run, for Both Teams, in Walkoff Win
Atlanta's second baseman hit two homers and was charged with a costly two-run error in a 4-3 walkoff win by the Braves
The Atlanta Braves rallied late against the Milwaukee Brewers bullpen, winning 4-3 in Truist Park on Saturday afternoon.
Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.
The Turning Point
Clearly, it’s the bottom of the 9th inning.
The Braves had mustered only four hits off starter Kyle Harrison and Milwaukee’s bullpen, with lefty Aaron Ashby taking the ball to secure a narrow 3-2 lead into the 9th and finish the win. While Ashby isn’t the normal closer - he has finished only four of his 33 games this season and he’s not one of the six Milwaukee relievers with a save - he’s not a bad pitcher by any means. And being a lefty, it made sense to ask him to face the top of the order, capped with two lefty hitters in Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson.
Ashby got the job done against Drake Baldwin, striking him out on five pitches. Matt Olson lucked into a base hit, though, getting jammed on an inside sinker but dropping it in no-man’s-land between the right fielder, second baseman, and center fielder.
And that brought up Ozzie Albies, who homered earlier in the game off of lefty starter Kyle Harrison. Ashby quickly got him down 0-2, then buried a curveball in the dirt before coming back to challenge Ozzie. It wa a good pitch, too - a 98.1 mph sinker on the black away and thigh high.
Ozzie got a good, not great, swing on it and put it into the right field corner, just barely clearing the wall for the walk-off home run.
Let’s do the usual rounds. First is Atlanta’s call, with Brandon Gaudin once again stepping up and meeting the moment:
Next is Ben Ingram’s call on the Atlanta Braves Radio Network:
And finally, just for fun, here’s Milwaukee’s television broadcast, which you can hear deflate as the ball keeps carrying towards the seats.
This was Ozzie’s fourth walk-off home run of his career.
Today’s Player of the Game
Believe it or not, it was Ozzie.
It almost didn’t appear that it would be, though. Sure, he broke up Harrison’s perfect game with the solo shot in the 5th. But he also had a defensive error that resulted in Sale both allowing two runs in the 6th and running his pitch count high enough where he was unable to finish the inning. Ozzie bobbled a tailor-made double play and then decided to go to second anyway, ending with Atlanta not getting any outs on the play.
The only run that Ozzie wasn’t involved in was a 7th-inning groundout to third. Austin Riley caught the ball just off the dirt, thinking he had snagged a line drive, and when he realized there was no out call, reflexively fired the ball to first to get the batter. The runner on third base, who had frozen when the ball was hit, was able to take off and score at the plate without a throw. Slight miscue, but not rising to the level of an error - he genuinely appeared to have thought he caught it and thankfully recovered in time to at least get the out.
It’s still been a resurgent season for the diminutive second baseman, who is hitting .284/.335/.453 with 12 homers and 40 RBI. It’s Ozzie’s highest batting average since 2019 and highest OPS since 2023’s outlier power year (for everyone).
He has one additional year of team control, having a $7M club option for 2027, his age-30 season. And after last season’s healthy underperformance led to questions about his viability as a starter, the conversation’s started to shift to a potential contract extension.
What You’ll Be Talking About
How improbable both of these wins are.
I’ve considered adding a section to the game recaps, called Statcast Superlatives, which highlight some of the notable stats from the game.
It’s full of Brewers - they had the top ten hardest-hit balls of the game, as well as four of the top five pitch velocities and more whiffs for Kyle Harrison (14) than Chris Sale (12).
But Atlanta won this one, just like they won last night. This is why baseball’s both a fun and frustrating game; you can do everything right and the other team can still get the breaks that let you steal a victory. It’s why it’s hard to get too mad about losing a short three or five-game postseason series where luck and the randomness of baseball play an outsized role in the outcome.
But for this clubhouse, they understand that no game is over until the 27th out. “The fun thing about this team is we’re never out of it,” starter Chris Sale told the media after the game. “No matter the situation we’re in, we could be down one, down five, seventh inning, fourth inning, ninth inning; we always feel like we have a chance.”
To Sale’s point, Atlanta now has 25 comeback wins, one behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for the most in baseball. They are now 30-16 against teams over .500, a .652 winning percentage that’s even better than their already stellar .640 winning percentage on the season.
Ozzie explained that this season’s roster feels special, and so things like this should be expected. “This team is really special,” Albies said. “I’ve been on this team for a long time with a really special group each year. But this one is definitely, I’ll say, one of the top two that I have on the list. It’s a special team, great group of guys. Our staff does anything to prepare us every single day to go and compete.”
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, inexplicably, is in position for a potential sweep. Bryce Elder (5-4, 3.15) gets the ball opposite lefty Robert Gasser (0-3, 4.88) at 1:35 PM ET.