Walt Weiss and the Braves’ staff made the bold decision to hold off ace Chris Sale from Game 2 of Atlanta’s National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Sunday night.
If they could manage to win without throwing their top two starters, they would head back to Atlanta tied at 1 with Sale and Tyler Mahle lined up to start the two home games in the series.
But by doing so, they would be throwing a third straight bullpen game and reducing their chances of winning Game 2.
The bold move
paid off as six relievers combined to hold down the Dodgers’ bats and the Atlanta offense did just enough to eke out a 3-2 win in Los Angeles, sending the best-of-five series back to Atlanta level at one win apiece.
For a time, it looked like Didier Fuentes, who had an up-and-down wild-card series, was going to carry the final four innings himself. He entered in the bottom of the sixth and retired the first 11 batters he faced to protect a 3-1 lead before Max Muncy hit a solo homer off him with two outs in the ninth to cut the deficit to one run.
Raisel Iglesias came out of the bullpen and got the final out, getting Josue De Paula to pop out in foul territory to close out the win.
The win didn’t have to be as stressful as it proved to be for the Braves, who stranded 11 runners on base.
The Braves had Dodgers starter Blake Snell on the ropes in the first inning, loading the bases with one out on Ronald Acuña Jr.’s single followed by consecutive walks from Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies. Atlanta did plate the first run of the game on Mauricio Dubón’s infield single with two outs. But Sean Murphy’s strikeout prevented the Braves from putting up a crooked number.
Ray Kerr did the opener job for the second time in four days, delivering 2 2/3 innings of scoreless work to run his total to six shutout innings on just three hits over his first two postseason starts. He struck out two in a 1-2-3 first and then navigated a leadoff Freddie Freeman single in the second.
He ran into some trouble with Miguel Rojas’ leadoff double in the third but recorded two outs around a walk and then was replaced by Grant Holmes, who got Will Smith to ground out to third on his first pitch to end the threat.
Holmes didn’t carry that same success into the fourth, when old friend Freddie Freeman led off with a game-tying solo homer. The Dodgers chased Holmes after he got just two outs after a single followed by a walk, but Dylan Lee entered the game, struck out Max Muncy and got Tommy Edman to pop out to escape another threat with the game tied at 1.
The Braves reclaimed the lead in the next half-inning, when Michael Harris II delivered a two-out triple just over Teoscar Hernandez’s glove down the left field line and came home on Kris Bubic’s wild pitch.
The Dodgers appeared poised to again tie the game or take the lead when they put the first two runners of the fifth on base against Lee. Robert Suarez entered, however, and retired the next two batters on flyouts before striking out Hernandez to escape with the lead intact.
Los Angeles finished 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, stranding seven runners.
Harris then added onto the lead with his third hit in the seventh, an RBI double to score Olson, leaving him a homer short of the cycle.
That run proved critical when Muncy hit his second homer in as many games of this series to chase Fuentes. But Iglesias needed just three pitches to retire De Paula and close out a highly improbable — and quite possibly series-altering — win for the Braves.
