Today's Three Things: The Baseball Gods Rain BABIP Down Upon Atlanta

Bryce Elder didn't have his slider tonight, but Boston also got all of the breaks on their batted balls

The Atlanta Braves were shut out for the fourth time this season (and second in the last week) in their 8-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park on Wednesday night.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the fourth inning.

Boston entered the inning without having yet scored a run, but that would change in a hurry through a combination of quality at-bats and some BABIP luck.

Masataka Yoshida led off by taking advantage of a center-cut fastball and absolutely ripping a single to left at 104 off the bat. Mickey Gasper then drew a six-pitch walk, with Elder getting down 3-0 (and not challenging one of those pitches, which was most certainly touching the zone) before getting back into it but not being able to finish Gasper off.

Nick Sogard then bunted both guys over, with Austin Riley fielding the bunt, which gave the Braves their first out of the inning. And then came the fluky BABIP shehanigans.

Marcelo Mayer attempted to bail Bryce Elder out of the inning, sending a grounder to Matt Olson that was tailor-made for a 1st-and-home double play (or at worst the second out of the inning), but the Gold Glover saw it kick off the palm of his glove and into foul territory, allowing Yoshida to score from third.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was the primary nuisance in Tuesday’s opener, drove in Gasper with a line drive to left. Jarren Duran then broke his bat on an inside fastball, but had just enough on it to carry over the infield and drop it into shallow left field, loading the bases with only one out.

Ceddanne then shot an inside sinker to left, scoring two more (the second on a fielding error on the relay to Chadwick Tromp) and ending the night for Elder.

Dylan Dodd was called on to finish the inning, which he finally did…but only after a cutter well below the zone was shot to center by Wilyer Abreu to bring in two more runs, both charged to Elder.

Final tally: Five singles, one walk, two errors, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice bunt, resulting in six runs.

Bryce finished the game officially being tagged for all six of those runs (but only five earned) on nine hits in 3.1 innings. He once again failed to miss many bats, picking up only two whiffs, primarily because he did not trust his slider tonight and threw just eight of them.

Despite the rough outing, arguably his first blowup of the season, his ERA is still only 2.50.

It was abundantly clear that Boston adjusted from the last time they faced Bryce. In that outing, which lasted eight innings, Elder tied his career-high with fourteen groundouts. Today, just four groundouts, but the Red Sox had six batted balls between 2° and 9° that likely would have been grounders had Boston not made a deliberate adjustment.

Today’s Player of the Game

I’m giving it to Carlos Carrasco.

The veteran righty entered after that disastrous fourth inning was complete and covered the final four innings. The results were…fine? Carrasco allowed two runs on five hits, striking out two. He was tagged for a homer by Jarren Duran in the 8th, but the results aren’t the biggest reason he’s the Player of the Game.

Atlanta’s going to enter Thursday afternoon’s finale with virtually the entire bullpen available, although it’s unlikely that Carrasco will be part of that. The veteran threw 46 pitches to finish the game, so with him set to be unavailable for three days, there’s a real possibility that Atlanta designates him for assignment tomorrow morning and brings up a fresh arm from Gwinnett to finish out the road trip.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Another slow night for the offense.

The tone for this game was set in the first inning - neither team scored, but the way they got to that result was drastically different. Both teams got a runner on first that stole second, with Ronald Acuña Jr. walking and Ceddanne Rafaela hitting a single, but that’s where the similarities ended.

Boston got a Willson Contreras 103.7 mph single to left, but the run didn’t score thanks to a fantastic 93.2 mph throw from Mauricio Dubón to get the out at the plate.

Atlanta, by contrast, had a pop fly and a groundball double play in six total pitches.

Different vibes, and the game diverged from there.

For the contest, Atlanta finished with only five hits, with a Chadwick Tromp double in the top of the 7th being the only extra-base hit. Even the quality of the batted balls was atypical, with only two of the game’s ten hardest-hit balls (and six of the top 23) being from Atlanta. The Braves went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, stranding nine on base.

Adding insult to injury, the Braves also committed three defensive errors.

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 looking to win the series on Thursday afternoon and thankfully, can lean on their ace to do it. Chris Sale (7-3, 1.89 ERA) squares off with Payton Tolle (2-2, 2.45) at 4:10 PM ET.