I had an awful feeling about this one.
AND THEN DRAKE BALDWIN WENT AND TOTALLY REDEEMED THE BRAVES.
Let’s start with the pitching before we get there, though – Hurston Waldrep looked really good.
The young righty threw a lot of pitches in this one, as it took 102 pitches to get through 5.2 innings, but the splitter was working. Waldrep got whiffs on 52% (13 of 25 swings) of his splitters, and he ended up with 9 strikeouts on the evening. The Philadelphia Phillies clearly struggled to figure out what
the pitch was doing, and Waldrep looked every part the former first-round pick.
He ran into really only a couple of issues.
The first was a shaky bottom of the third. Nick Castellanos, of the 5.1% walk rate, started off with a walk, and Harrison Bader ended up with a single on what can be described as just “one of those plays, you know”. Waldrep then righted the ship a bit by striking out Bryson Stott, but then he got himself in more hot water by allowing a single to center from Trea Turner. This brought up Kyle Schwarber, and I’ll admit I had a “here we go” sort of feeling going on. Turns out, I didn’t need to as Schwarber struck out, and Bryce Harper grounded out harmlessly.
The second scored the actual run. It would be … inaccurate to say the Atlanta Braves starter was “sharp” in this one. He walked 4 batters, and there’s a reason it took 102 pitches to not even make it through 6 innings (40 balls). But he was effective, and he was able to keep them off-balance. As I mentioned earlier today, Waldrep has begun throwing a cutter, and it was actually pretty good. When you throw a cutter as a right-handed pitcher to a left-handed batter, the objective is to actually get it just in off the plate on the batter’s hands. Otherwise, it’s just a pitch breaking toward a hitter, and that’s generally bad. Well, he didn’t get a cutter in, and Brandon Marsh hit it a long way in the bottom of the 4th.
Outside of that, there really wasn’t much offense against Jesus Luzardo, who had a perfect game working through the first 13 batters, and he made it 6.2 innings while striking out 7, walking one, and giving up a grand total of 2 hits. As a writer, I’m happy that he made me look smart for saying he’s been better than his ERA, but as a Braves fan, I would really rather he did this against someone else. He looked good, and the Braves’ offense did not.
The bullpen is where things went downhill for the Phillies.
In the top of the 8th, Orion Kerkering came in and did … a bad job. After Vidal Brujan began the inning with an infield hit, the formerly highly-touted relief prospect walked then-pinch-hitter Drake Baldwin and Jurickson Profar to load the bases. The Phillies had seen enough of that, so they went out to get him and brought in Tanner Banks to face Matt Olson. Olson didn’t do a ton of damage, but he made contact and grounded out to second to tie the game at 1. Ronald Acuna did not make contact, and then the Phillies, thinking Ozzie Albies can hit lefties in 2025, intentionally walked Albies. Michael Harris grounded out to end the threat.
The next inning also started off with an infield single, so more infield singles, please? After Jake Fraley started off with an infield single off the glove of Jose Alvarado, Nacho Alvarez looked like he had never bunted before in his life, but he got it down, moving Fraley to second. They did this in front of Brujan for … reasons, and Brujan promptly struck out. Then came Drake Baldwin … WHO HIT A TWO-RUN BOMB TO LEFT FIELD. And the Braves took a 3-1 lead that would ultimately hold and prevent a four-game sweep.
The Braves head to Chicago to face off against the Cubs for a three-game set, starting on Labor Day.
