Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: at least there were fewer walks
So what beat the Braves on Tuesday evening at SunTrust Park? It was a variety of things, but for a change, walks were a bit of an afterthought.
The Cardinals are rebounding from their near-disastrous against the Dodgers this week at the expense of the Braves. Of course, the Atlanta Braves seem to be accommodating those efforts. On Monday, it was the ‘walk thing’. On Tuesday, it was more-or-less everything.
How do you lose games? Poor pitching, anemic offense, and bad defense. You win games by doing the opposite… and the Braves quite literally had all of that going at times, while St. Louis ended up doing more of the good themselves; less of the bad… while also being in the right place when the Braves imploded.
The worst bits happened in tandem as Atlanta allowed the Cardinals to blow open a closely fought game in the 8th inning.
Prior to that, Anibal Sanchez had dabbling in his usual escape-artistry (which included throwing a runner out at the plate on a squeeze play).
Still, Sanchez has been listed as a hero for the night: he struck out 9 and walked none over 6 innings, giving up 2 earned runs.
That should have been enough, especially since the Braves were only down a run, thanks to an Acuna homer… his best contribution of the night, but it was the only run that they could muster as the ‘big hit’ proved elusive.
Come to the 8th
Brad Brach wasn’t without sin, but he did deserve a better fate.
After a groundout, he walked Matt Carpenter (nope, no relation). This is where Braves Country started cringing.. and rightly so. A double put runners at 2nd and 3rd, and Brian Snitker brought in Dan Winkler.
A bullet up the middle that almost got Winkler in the head scored Carpenter. Marcel Ozuna was then walked – that’s two in the inning now – to load the bases.
Yadi Molina then singled to left against Sam Freeman. That probably should have scored only 1 run, given the positioning of Ronald Acuna.
Except that he was perhaps thinking too far ahead on the play and overran the baseball.
With the ball now trickling toward the wall, everybody on the bases scored.
Freeman issued a 3rd walk in the frame – the last of the game – but the damage had already been done.
2 of the walked Cardinals scored and the error allowed in 2 tack-on runs that made it 6-1 and effectively ended the contest.
It’s those little things that continue to nag the Braves lately, and now this has allowed ‘streakiness’ to work its way in. Sure – the Nationals and Cardinals are decent teams, but so is Atlanta when they have their collective acts together.
What’s Going On?
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So now it’s a 4-game losing streak, which pretty much eliminates any thought of taking a home-field advantage away from the Cubs in October.
Atlanta has now also slipped behind the Dodgers for the right to host the divisional series, though LA still hasn’t come close to clinching anything either (of note: they are the hottest team in the NL right now).
Playoff baseball for the Braves is still not nearly in any danger, thanks to this 5.5 game lead in the division (the Phillies finally won a game for themselves, but even that hasn’t exactly been habit-forming).
Atlanta needs to continue to tell themselves that they are the ones in control and then come out and take care of business.
Certainly, we don’t want to see the Phillies grab any early momentum this weekend to create doubt.
That, though, clearly requires a full team effort – and it doesn’t mean that one player need to press and stress about doing the entire job alone. The Braves have won as a team all year – and they need to continue that here in this final set of 11 games.