Today's Three Things: The Aggressiveness of Walt Weiss Leads to a Win

Atlanta's skipper aggressively pulled all his levers to secure an early series win over the Cubs

The Atlanta Braves rallied late to take the lead in a pitcher’s duel, beating the Chicago Cubs 4-1 in Truist Park on Wednesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 8th inning.

Mired in a 1-1 tie, Walt Weiss got aggressive with his personnel as he was looking for that one big hit. Michael Harris II got an infield single off of an inside sinker, which prompted the Cubs to finally remove starter Shota Imanaga from the game. And with setup man Phil Maton in the game, Atlanta was able to start going to their bench. Ha-Seong Kim singled on a ground ball through left field, and the pinch-hitters started. Dominic Smith struck out, but Mike Yastrzemski jumped on a sweeper middle-away and got it just past the outstretched glove of Seiyz Suzuki in right.

While Ha-Seong Kim was thrown out by a mile on the back side of the play, Yastrzemski still gave Atlanta the lead. And it turns out that the Braves weren’t done.

Mauricio Dubón then homered down the left field line on a curveball that was sitting inside, pushing Atlanta’s lead to 4-1.

He explained to the media after the game that he played with Maton in Houston and was expecting that curveball on a 1-1 count. It’s just another data point in the “Dubón is clutch” argument, as he’s now hitting .317 with runners in scoring position and leads the team with 23 RBI in those situations.

Today’s Player of the Game

By vote of the postcast, it’s a group award for Atlanta’s bullpen.

Asked to cover a short start for the second straight day (more on that for a minute), Atlanta’s pen provided 4.2 scoreless innings, allowing only two hits and two walks while striking out six.

It was mostly the usual suspects - Tyler Kinley came in to clean up the 5th, while the trio of Dylan Lee, Robert Suarez, and Raisel Iglesias covered the final three innings. But lefty starter Martín Pérez entered for the sixth inning and absolutely mowed down the Cubs on just 12 pitches, striking out two. Since Walt Weiss decided to go to the leverage arms the rest of the way instead of riding Pérez in a tied game, the veteran is now available to make a start this weekend versus the Red Sox.

(Part of the reason that the Braves were able to aggressively empty the back end of their pen is that Chris Sale, who has a proclivity to go deep into games, gets the ball tomorrow for the series finale.)

Atlanta’s pen at the moment is the quartet of high-leverage arms, a lefty groundball specialist in Aaron Bummer, and an amorphous mass of longmen/spot starters/’utility pitchers’. It may not be pretty, but it’s hard to argue with the results to this point in the schedule.

What You’ll Be Talking About

JR Ritchie’s short start.

The prospect went 4.1 innings, allowing only one run on two hits, but with three walks opposite four strikeouts. He really labored in this one - Cubs hitters fouled off 24 pitches, meaning his pitch count was in the 80s when he finally left the game.

The problem comes back to his inability to miss bats. While Jake made the (correct) point on the Postcast that he’s still getting soft contact, with only one hard-hit ball off of him tonight and an average exit velocity of just 81.0 mph, he got just seven whiffs tonight and had only a 22% CSW.

It’s a tightrope of “throw everything on the black and get groundballs”, one that he’s successfully walked to this point in the season. But there’s a reason why Ritchie’s 3.32 ERA is backed by a FIP in the 6s and an xERA in the 5s. He’s not in any danger of losing his roster spot right now, but as pitchers start to come back from the injured list (or if Atlanta makes an acquisition at the deadline), there will be questions about Ritchie’s place in the rotation if he can’t make that next evolution in his game and start getting whiffs when he needs to.

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 in action tomorrow night, looking for a series sweep. Ace Chris Sale (6-2, 2.20) gets the ball opposite Ben Brown (1-1, 1.82) at 7:15 PM ET.