Chris Sale was very solid for another start but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Cubs from leaving Cobb County with the series win. Two runs in the fourth and one run in the fifth were enough for Chicago to eke out a close win over the Atlanta Braves.
Things were quiet for the first couple of innings until the third inning rolled around. That’s when Marcell Ozuna led it off with a double that eluded Seiya Suzuki’s glove in right field and went off the bricks below the Chop House. Immediately after
Ozuna scampered to second with a double Arizona Fall League invitee Nacho Alvarez Jr. brought him home with a double of his own to break the deadlock in Atlanta’s favor. The Braves had a chance to add on after Matt Olson walked to make it two runners with one out. Ronald Acuña Jr. flew out harmlessly for the second out and then Drake Baldwin flew out to make sure that Jameson Taillon limited the damage to just one run.
The missed opportunity ended up being crucial because Carson Kelly hit the very first pitch he saw from Chris Sale into the seats beyond the away bullpen in left field for a solo homer to lead off the fourth inning. Shortly after that, Justin Turner smacked one for a double in order to cash in a single-and-stolen base from old friend Dansby Swanson and push the Cubs into the lead as an instant response to Atlanta’s wastefulness. That’s why you cash in your opportunities, folks — the baseball gods are swift and cruel. Ha-Seong Kim led off Atlanta’s half of the fourth inning with a single but he was wiped out trying to steal second base and then the Braves went quiet after that in order to make sure that any response wouldn’t be a swift one for Atlanta.
The Cubs eventually extended their lead in the fifth inning after Nico Hoerner essentially manufactured a run nearly on his own. He singled to lead off the inning, took second on a wayward pickoff attempt from Chris Sale, stole third without a throw and then made it home on a sacrifice fly where Acuña caught it with no room to load up for a throw.
Marcell Ozuna and Jurickson Profar made it runners on the corners with just one out to begin the halfway point of the contest. We weren’t really expecting Jameson Taillon to go long in this one and indeed, that was the impetus for the Cubs to go with Taylor Rogers at that point after 79 pitches from Taillon. The Braves were able to cash in a sacrifice fly thanks to Matt Olson but that was all they could handle, so the deficit was only cut to one run by that point.
As it turned out, the fifth inning was also the finish line for Chris Sale, whose night was done after 93 pitches and five innings. This was actually the first time since May that Sale had given up three runs in an outing and the first time that he’d given up three earned runs since April. Now granted, Sale did miss a couple of months earlier this Summer but that’s still a pretty wild run for Sale to go on. So while he wasn’t his usual dominant self, he still kept the Braves in the game and also struck out nine batters along the way.
Things stayed quiet once the bullpen got involved for both teams. Pierce Johnson pitched a scoreless sixth while Tyler Kinley continued what’s been a pretty successful run for himself with the Braves so far by covering four innings across the seventh and eighth. Dylan Lee got the baton to finish off the eighth inning and did so in short order. That eventually set the table for the Braves to try to get something going in the bottom of the eighth inning. Matt Olson hit a one-out single but two ground outs from Acuña and Drake Baldwin ended up snuffing out that chance before it had a real opportunity to turn into something.
Raisel Iglesias got the ball for the ninth inning and while he gave up a leadoff walk to Pete-Crow Armstrong, a ground ball out at second and then catching Nico Hoerner trying to steal second immediately after the groundout made it two outs for Iglesias at that point. Iglesias got Carson Kelly to fly out with runners on the corners in order to give the Braves a chance in their half of the ninth inning against Andrew Kittredge. As it turned out, they had no chance as Kittredge shut them down completely to end the game.
That’s now 34 one-run losses for the Braves this season, which is 10 fewer than the overall MLB record for one-run losses that was set by the 1968 White Sox. They’ll have to have an insane run of bad luck to reach 10 more one-run losses but with the way this season has gone, I wouldn’t dare to “challenge” the Braves when it comes to that. Either way, the Braves played the Cubs tough in this one but Sale’s wobbly middle-innings and the Braves lack of offense against Chicago’s pitching staff ended up dooming them in this one. They’ll now have to search for a series win against the Astros in another tough series later this weekend. We’ll see what happens.
