Just when hope was fading and the Braves were staring down a second straight loss to the Phillies which would have dropped their NL East lead to three games, La Bestia showed up in a major way.
Ronald Acuña Jr.’s three-run homer in the eighth inning erased a 4-1 deficit. Austin Riley’s RBI triple in the top of the ninth scored Ozzie Albies, who led off with a double, to complete the comeback and help the Braves pull out a 5-4 win over Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park.
The rally pushed Atlanta’s division
lead to five games and means it will at the very least keep the division lead where it was entering the series should the Braves lose Monday afternoon’s series finale.
Acuña, who also had a sacrifice fly, tied his season high with four RBIs in the win, hitting his 16th homer, which may be his most impactful of the season. Mike Yastrzemski and Drake Baldwin set the stage for the bomb as the baserunners, working a walk and a single, respectively, to bring up Acuña as the tying run.
After a season that hasn’t lived up the slugger’s lofty expectations, he now has hits in eight of his last nine games, including four straight multi-hit games and six multi-hit games in that span. Over the last nine games, Acuña is 17-for-34 with three doubles, two homers, six runs and seven RBIs.
Raisel Iglesias allowed a leadoff single to Bryson Stott in the bottom of the ninth. He reached third with one out after a groundout and a passed ball. But Iglesias got Bryan De La Cruz to line out to short and struck out Edmundo Sosa on three pitches to secure his 31st save.
The Braves dug themselves an early hole with a pair of unearned runs in the first inning on Mauricio Dubón’s throwing error which negated a potential 6-4-3 double play.
Instead, his fifth error of the season gave the Phillies two runners in scoring position with no outs. A Luis Arraez sacrifice fly followed by Alec Bohm ’s two-out RBI double staked Philadelphia to a 2-0 lead behind a pair of unearned runs.
The Phillies threatened a few more times in the next two innings — including putting runners on the corners with one out in the third — but Mahle escaped that jam unscathed and really settled in from there, retiring the final 11 batters he faced.
He finished allowing the two unearned runs on four hits over six innings, striking out three and walking none. He lowered his ERA through six starts with the Braves to 1.24.
The Braves scraped across one run in the sixth on Acuña’s sacrifice fly, but squandered a few chances over the middle innings which made it seem like Mahle was headed for a tough-luck loss.
Solo homers from Derek Hill and Kyle Schwarber in the seventh inning dug the Braves into an even deeper hole.
Phillies starter Aaron Nola was excellent, taking a perfect game into the fourth and allowing one run on four hits over seven innings, striking out five and walking one.
The same can’t be said for Philadelphia’s bullpen, though. Rookie Alex McFarlane blew his first career save, giving up all three of the runs in the eighth. Phillies closer Jhoan Duran (2-5) then took the loss for giving up the run in the ninth.
Dylan Lee (6-0) recorded the win with a scoreless eighth inning in his first appearance since Aug. 31.
The Braves go for the series win Monday afternoon (1:05 p.m. ET) with Bryce Elder starting against Philadelphia’s Jesus Luzardo.
