Coming off a series where the Braves mostly sewed up the NL East by taking two of three from the Phillies, they then departed on a road trip consisting of the final part of their September gauntlet. The first part of that road trip had them go up to Wrigley Field to face the Cubs, who are in the midst of maybe the weirdest season (by one measure) ever. With Chris Sale and Tyler Mahle not deployed pitching-wise against the league’s best offense, things didn’t go well for the Braves… except for the one game
where they donned their homer-hitting shoes and pulled off a really fun comeback win.
Monday, September 14
Cubs 7, Braves 3
The Braves gave the start to Reynaldo Lopez, and it went pretty poorly. The Cubs plated three in the second (with an inning extended due to a non-double play on a slow-enough grounder hit by the Cubs’ catcher), and then two more in the third. AJ Smith-Shawver came out of the bullpen and finished up the rest of the game, but was taken deep by presumptive NL MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong, who ended up going 4-for-5 and finishing a triple shy of the cycle in the game. For their part on offense, the Braves mostly just hit a bazillion grounders when they weren’t striking out against David Peterson. They plated three in the seventh, including two on a Mike Yastrzemski pinch-hit homer, but nothing else. There was a rally-killing double play in the eighth after the first two batters reached, and then Ronald Acuña Jr. hit into a game-ending double play while representing the tying run in the ninth.
- Braves: .318 wOBA, .293 xwOBA
- Cubs: .386 wOBA, .326 xwOBA
As expected, I guess. Cubs doing Cubs things.
Tuesday, September 15
Braves 6, Cubs 3
For a while, this game felt like it was going to be similar to the first one. The Cubs plated a run in second, but the big blow came in the fourth: with two on and no out, Pedro Ramirez hit a routine double play ball to Mauricio Dubon at short, but the latter inexplicably threw the ball nowhere near second base. By the time the inning ended, Martin Perez and the Braves trailed 3-0.
That’s where things stayed until top of the sixth, when the Braves finally got to old friend/frenemy Kevin Gausman, thanks to Acuña drilling a two-run shot to pull them within one. The tormenting of old friends wasn’t done there, though. In the top of the seventh, Ozzie Albies exorcised his latest slump demons by mashing another huge two-run homer, this time off Jacob Webb. That turned the game around, and after two perfect innings from Didier Fuentes, Drake Baldwin added a third two-run homer in the top of the ninth. Raisel Iglesias shut the door, and the Braves had a fun comeback win where they actually hit pulled fly balls in the air to good results, instead of not doing that (which has been a theme for about the last six weeks with this team).
Crow-Armstrong was kept in check here, going 0-for-5 with a strikeout. Martin Perez had a fairly brutal outing with a 2/4 K/BB ratio, but danced through the raindrops successful-y-ish, aside from Dubon throwing that ball away.
- Braves: .367 wOBA, .359 xwOBA
- Cubs: .201 wOBA, .300 xwOBA
Wow, the Cubs underhit their xwOBA massively. Go figure.
Wednesday, September 16
Cubs 8, Braves 4
The Braves gave JR Ritchie the ball in this one after he had a really good four-start run in Triple-A, and it went terribly. Meanwhile, Shota Imanaga, who’s been having a meh season due in large part to an incredible run of homers allowed since August, absolutely eviscerated the Braves.
Ritchie’s struggles were present from the get-go, with two walks and a run in the first. Crow-Armstrong tagged him for a homer on an 0-2 pitch in the third. Alex Bregman followed suit with a homer in the fourth, and the rout became apparent when the Braves left Ritchie in to face the lineup a third time, where it quickly became 6-0. Owen Murphy and Brent Suter mopped the game up, with the former giving up yet another homer to Crow-Armstrong. He finished 3-for-4 with two homers, a triple, and a walk in this one, while Bregman finished a single shy of the cycle. Combine that with Imanaga putting up an 8/0 K/BB in six innings, and the Braves didn’t really have a chance.
The Braves did score four runs in this game, through three game on RBI groundouts, which is a tough way to sustain a rally. Two of those runs came in the ninth, where the first three Braves batters reached, but the next three all made outs to end the game.
Ritchie finished with an awful 5/2 K/BB, two homers, one HBP in 4 2/3 line. Murphy was even worse with a 2/1 K/BB ratio and a homer allowed in 2 1/3. The Braves don’t need to do much to clinch the division, but this sort of stuff doesn’t help.
- Braves: .257 wOBA, .247 xwOBA
- Cubs: .513 wOBA, .400 xwOBA
I’m kind of surprised this game was only 8-4, to be honest.
The great news for the Braves is that the Phillies went 1-1 against the Nationals while the Braves were going 1-2 against the Cubs. So, they lost only half a game, and are up 4.5 with nine to play (including holding the tiebreaker, which is kind of like being 5.5 up). They’re also more or less assured a playoff berth at this point, as it looks like just one more win or one more Diamondbacks loss will secure them a playoff berth. It’s fine for the Braves to be coasting at this point in terms of the big picture, but it does make the games somewhat less watchable. On the flip side, this team hasn’t had much offensive success for weeks now, whether facing the Cubs’ league-worst pitching or anyone else: they’re 20th in xwOBA and 26th in wRC+ since the start of August.
So, hopefully the three-homer game that led to a win was more of a sign of things to come than the other two games. We’ll see.
