Today’s Three Things: Ozzie Albies Plays the Hero in Tight Win Over Dodgers

Ozzie Albies had a clutch eighth-inning RBI as Atlanta edged Los Angeles

The Atlanta Braves fought off a late rally to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 at Truist Park on Tuesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 8th inning was when Atlanta took the lead, and the top of the 9th was when they won the game.

Tied at three and deep into the bullpens, Matt Olson opened the bottom of the 8th with the game’s first extra-base hit, a left-on-left double off of closer Tanner Scott.

It was a nice piece of hitting. The slide into second? Not so much.

And then Atlanta got to work with the manufacturing. Mauricio Dubón showed bunt before pulling the ball back and slashing a grounder to 2B Tommy Edman, pushing Olson to third. (Walt Weiss confirmed after the game that this wasn’t called or planned, it was entirely Dubón’s doing.) Michael Harris II got a bit overeager to score the run, though, swinging at an elevated slider inside and weakly punching it back at the pitcher for the second out.

And then Ozhaino Jurdy Jiandro Albies came to the plate.

Unable to extend his team-record sacrifice fly total he set earlier in the game, since there were two outs, Ozzie instead punched an 0-2 slider into centerfield to bring in Olson and give Atlanta the lead.

But LA almost took it right back.

Raisel Iglesias gave up a rocket off the bat of Shohei Ohtani to open the 9th, with Lane Thomas continuously drifting all the way back to the warning track just to watch the ball clang off his glove (and the wall) for a leadoff triple.

So Iglesias just cowboy’d up and got out of the jam.

With the infield in, he got Freddie Freeman to strike out with possibly the best changeup he’s thrown all season before inducing a weak grounder off the bat of Mookie Betts.

Atlanta then intentionally walked the red-hot Max Muncy to face Tommy Edman, who spoiled three fantastic changeups down and away before weakly flying out to centerfield to secure the win for the Braves.

Today’s Player of the Game

With just over 50% of the vote on the postcast, it’s Ozzie Albies.

As I alluded to above, Ozzie set the team single-season sacrifice fly record with his 13th tonight, which finished the scoring in Atlanta’s three-run first inning.

It should have been at least four runs in the first, but a passed ball with a runner on third was ruled to be a foul ball off of the bat of Mike Yastrzemski, despite video replay clearly showing that Yaz never touched the ball on his swing and the additional contact that the umpire heard was likely the ball hitting the catcher’s foot, not Yaz’s bat.

Those types of plays are, unfortunately, not reviewable by the teams and the officials declined to call a crew chief review, even after Walt Weiss (quite animatedly) requested one.

Said Weiss after the game, “Not a reviewable play. I'm not sure why that's the case, but that's the rules. […] I'd like to hear the argument against it. I don't think there is one."

Ozzie’s overall production is still being carried by a hot start to the season; he’s had two OPS marks in the .600s or lower since, including a .611 in August and a .594 in May. But despite the overall lack of performance, he’s been able to come through when it matters.

In what FanGraphs defines as “high leverage” situations this season, Ozzie has a 124 wRC+, and his line with a runner in scoring position and two outs is an absurd .298/.365/.383, good for a 113 wRC+.

Even with the summer slump, Ozzie’s done enough to at least have his final $7M club option picked up next year, with the Braves needing to figure out either a reasonable extension or a succession plan behind the team’s longest-tenured player.

What You’ll Be Talking About

With all due respect to Ronald Acuña Jr’s struggles tonight (and this season), which I’m reserving for the podcast tomorrow, let’s discuss Bryce Elder’s start.

The surface stats are pretty good: three runs over six innings, with no walks and five strikeouts. The hit total, eight, was a bit concerning until you see both the distribution and the exit velocities allowed. The top of the order, the dangerous trio of former MVPs in Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman, went a combined 0-9 with one strikeout off of Elder.

No, most of his damage was logged by the bottom of the order, with both #7 hitter Alex Call and #9 hitter Hunter Feduccia finishing with two hits and an RBI each, while #8 hitter Alek Thomas added his own RBI single.

And it’s not like these were well-struck balls, either - of the 21 balls in play off of Elder, only four were hard-hit and the average exit velocity he allowed was an anemic 84.7 mph. His changeup was the star of the show, getting half of his 12 whiffs.

You could tell that Elder’s outing was a good one by the fact that manager Walt Weiss allowed him to go back out for the sixth, sticking with him despite a leadoff HBP of Tommy Edman and a single to Alex Call that put a runner in scoring position with only one out. Two more strikeouts ended the threat and Elder’s night, and his ERA is now down to 3.95.

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’s back at it tomorrow night, with AJ Smith-Shawver (0-0, 6.23) taking on Roki Sasaki (5-5, 4.42) at 7:15 PM ET.