Atlanta Braves roar back against Cardinals Sunday night

It wasn’t pretty and it was in considerable doubt for a long time, but the Atlanta Braves man-handled a hapless Cardinals bullpen to get off the deck and finish the road trip with a win.

If you had told me that the Atlanta Braves had held the Cardinals to just 3 hits on this Sunday night game, I would have liked their chances.

It wasn’t nearly that easy, though.

6 walks and a key error led to enough base-runners to allow the home team to plate 3 runs against Braves starter Julio Teheran.

Teheran did not have his best stuff tonight – not even close – as he managed to K only 1 batter through 5 innings.  Still, there was only 1 earned run against him, and the way the Braves’ offense has been lately, 3 runs can be overcome, right?

Not against Max Fried‘s old high school teammate Jack Flaherty, it seems:  he allowed only 3 hits in 6 innings, but his outing came with zero walks and 7 strikeouts as the Braves couldn’t get anything going against him.

However, at 91 pitches, the Cards lifted Flaherty from the game.

Changes Came

It still didn’t look good going to the 9th with old friend John Gant and Carlos Martinez combining to shut Atlanta down through 8… Gant recorded 4 outs, all strikeouts.

Then Jordan Hicks arrived for the 9th, throwing flameballs in the 103+ mph range.  One little thing, though:  he didn’t get anybody out:  4 batters, 3 hits, a walk, and 3 runs scored against him to tie it up.

The big blow came from Austin Riley – again.  This despite an otherwise forgettable night since his was that costly error giving St. Louis 2 runs earlier in the contest.  He also struck out 3 times.

In the 9th, though:  an RBI single got one of those runs back and put runners on 2nd (Riley, advancing on a throw) and 3rd with none out.

Ozzie Albies gutted out a 10 pitch AB with a single driven sharply to right (opposite) field to tie it up, a hit that could have brought in Riley as well.

On the play, Albies was caught out between 1st and 2nd… it wasn’t immediately clear if he was trying to draw a throw to get Riley home from third, but he was unable to score.

In the bottom of the 9th, Jacob Webb got the Cards all out on a scant 7 pitches after the Braves had worked counts for close to 40 pitches in the top half of the inning.

The Braves half of the 10th was no less dramatic:

• Infield single off the bat handle for Freddie Freeman
• Walk to Josh Donaldson
• Fly out to deep right-center for Nick Markakis, putting Freeman to 3rd
• An intentional walk to Austin Riley – amazingly, the Cardinals didn’t want to throw him anything resembling a strike

• At this point, though, the Cardinals were shell-shocked and walked Brian McCann… with the bases loaded.

4-3 Braves… which remained so after a mostly harmless bottom of the 10th, courtesy of Luke Jackson.

3 Quick Takeaways

• This team’s resilience.  They kept working counts, working pitchers and somehow found a way.  The bullpen performed admirably over 5 innings:  2 walks, 1 hit, no runs.
• Austin Riley.  How on earth… ’nuff said.
• The big one:  there are some concerns going forward…
  • Ronald Acuna.  Now hitting .277 (though was 2 for 5 Sunday night), but missed multiple pitches he should have been able to handle.  He’s now 3 for his last 25 AB.
  • Josh Donaldson.  Hitting .260 and also missing some balls he should be either laying off of… or mashing.

Both hitters seem a bit out of sync right now.  Monday is a rare holiday off-day, then the club is back home.  Maybe that break will help.

Frankly, though, if I have to dig that far to find problems… the offense is still in decent shape.

Meanwhile:  Atlanta is now back to being 1.5 games behind Philadelphia and joins the small club (5 members) of NL teams with 30 wins.  We may remember this one come September.