The theme of this series so far was something like, “Braves can’t find holes, Rays hit all the homers and find all the holes.” Well, much of the third game between these two teams was similar, as both Martin Perez ad Nick Martinez largely cruised through the afternoon. But, lo and behold: in the eighth, the Braves flipped the script and found a bunch of holes in a row, leading to a 3-1 win that staved off a sweep. To put a fine point on it, the Braves didn’t actually hit the ball particularly well
as they notched five straight hits… they just happened to actually get the ball to drop in a way that didn’t happen for them all series.
Not to be forgotten in the effort was Martin Perez, whose predilection for Perez pachinko worked out well on the afternoon. Perez had a scary first inning because three of the first four reached against him — largely on soft singles, what else. (Yandy Diaz’ leadoff hit was a 94 mph liner through the infield, but the other two weren’t well hit balls.) But, the Braves managed to escape with something amazing: a double play off the bat of speed demon Chandler Simpson. You kind of have to see it to believe it:
Was Simpson ultimately safe at first? I have no idea, but the Rays opted not to challenge.
After that, basically nothing happened in this game for a long while. Seriously, only one of the next 24 plate appearances resulted in a non-out, and that was Matt Olson’s two-out single in the first. Perez issued a two-out walk in the fifth, but a routine lineout to right field ended that inning.
The sixth was a bit more eventful. The Braves went 1-2-3 again, but there was a scary moment where it looked like Mauricio Dubon tweaked his oblique evading an inside pitch. Dubon ultimately stayed in, and hopefully he’s avoided an actual injury, but we’ll see.
With two outs in the bottom of the frame, and the powerful Junior Caminero facing him for a third time, Perez issued an unintentional intentional walk to the slugger. That ended up being stressful because the next batter hit another bloop single (sigh), bringing up Simpson once again. This time, Simpson tried to bunt for a hit, only to be thrown out (maybe) on an acrobatic spin-and-throw by Perez. The Rays did challenge this one, and the call stood; the vagaries of replay review potentially helped the Braves out here.
In the top of the seventh, the Braves finally got another hit, courtesy of Ha-Seong Kim, who lined a hard single off Caminero’s glove at third base. However, Kim then got picked off, so… ew. Perez finished his day with another perfect frame. It was a very “good Martin Perez” outing — he won’t wow you in the xFIP department as he only had a 4/2 K/BB ratio, but he didn’t allow a homer unlike an assortment of other arms the Braves used this series. It wasn’t as good as his emergency seven-inning outing on August 1 against the Nationals, but it helped a lot nonetheless.
The Rays pulled Martinez in favor of a lefty reliever to pitch to Olson and Michael Harris II in the seventh, despite a modest pitch count. Both Olson and Harris hit liners to the outfield that were easily caught. Didier Fuentes had a no-problems top of the eighth, ending the frame by catching a soft liner hit back at him.
So, onto the bottom of the eighth, where the Braves rallied against Kevin Kelly. With one out, the Braves subbed Dominic Smith for Ozzie Albies. Smith wasn’t even supposed to start in this game, but was inserted when Lane Thomas felt a twinge in his oblique during pregame activities. Albies did the same thing the Braves did a lot earlier in this series: hit a 50-50 fly ball. This time, though, it worked out! It split the gap, and Albies was able to sprint to third after the ball took a friendly (to the Braves) bounce off the wall. Up next was Austin Riley, and his inside-out swing produced a sad dribbler that somehow rolled perfectly through the right side of the Rays’ drawn-in infield. Mike Yastrzemski, who also didn’t start today (and didn’t get added to the lineup after Thomas couldn’t play) then made a pinch-hit appearance of his own, and chipped in with another fairly unimpressive bit of contact, except that it too was down the right-field line enough such that no Rays fielder could grab it. The ball bounced up a bit and ended up being a ground-rule double. With the infield drawn in again, Kim hit yet another weak spurter, but this too got through, giving the Braves a 3-0 lead. The Rays swapped relievers, but now it was Drake Baldwin’s turn for yet another soft single. However, the frame ended when Ronald Acuña Jr. failed to extend the soft hit parade, as his weak comebacker turned into a double play instead. Seriously, look at this:
We’ll take it, but not exactly the proudest moment in Atlanta Braves hitting history.
All that was left was the ninth, and it was more dramatic than it needed to be. After a first-pitch groundout by Caminero, pinch hitter Victor Mesa Jr. scooped up a Raisel Iglesias 1-2 changeup below the zone and just clipped it over the wall to make it a 3-1 game. Iglesias then walked Simpson, bringing the tying run to the plate in the form of another pinch hitter, Liam Hicks. After a battle, Hicks didn’t pull the trigger on a fastball inside the zone, making pinch hitter Jonathan Aranda the last hope. Aranda saw seven pitches from Iglesias, only one in the zone, with the other six nowhere near. Still, that seventh pitch was a changeup way off the plate and it turned into a paltry comebacker and the final out.
So, the Braves will be, at worst, three games up on the Phillies for the start of their key series this weekend. That means that even if the Phillies sweep, they won’t be in the division lead due to the Braves capturing the tiebreaker. Or, maybe the Astros could help the Braves out again, and shave another digit off that magic number for the NL East crown. We’ll see.
