Atlanta Braves stun Cardinals with 9th inning comeback, take series lead

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ST LOUIS, MISSOURI – OCTOBER 06: Dansby Swanson #7 of the Atlanta Braves is congratulated by his teammates in the dugout after hitting an RBI double and scoring a run during the ninth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals in game three of the National League Division Series at Busch Stadium on October 06, 2019 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) /

No matter the outcome, this was a game featuring outstanding pitching and defense. At the end, the Atlanta Braves silenced the home crowd with late heroics.

Going into this Game 3 Sunday showdown, Atlanta Braves fans had to be cautiously optimistic with Mike Soroka starting against Adam Wainwright.

Wainwright certainly isn’t the same pitcher he was during the early half of this decade, but there’s no doubt that he’s still a competitor to be reckoned with.

There was a 4-game stretch starting at the beginning of September in which he gave up a total of 1 earned run over 27 innings – including wins over Milwaukee and Washington.

Indeed, there have been bouts of “good Wainwright” and “bad Wainwright” this season… the same way that Atlanta has been flipping coins with Julio Teheran and (to a lesser extent) Dallas Keuchel.

Today… the Cardinals drew their ace back out of the desk.

Mike Soroka came to pitch as well – living up to his superb road ERA. In fact, the combined pitching line for the starters went like this:

14.2 innings
6 hits
2 walks
15 strikeouts
1 earned run

That’s a far cry from many of the playoff games we’ve seen thus far: an honest-to-goodness pitching duel.

Early Breakthrough

Even when the Cardinals eked out a run in the second inning, it didn’t immediately look like a real issue for the Atlanta Braves.

Marcel Ozuna worked to a full count and then dropped a ball into right field that was far enough away from everyone that he ended up on second base with none out.

I say “dropped” because… it was more lucky-than-good… but you take these if you can get them.

There have been 31 batted ball events tracked between both teams through seven innings. Only one exit velocity was slower than the 62.1 MPH double by Marcell Ozuna that led to the only run of the game thus far.
— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) October 6, 2019

Yadier Molina then did what he does… moved the runner to third. This allowed Matt Carpenter to get a fly ball to center that scored Ozuna for a 1-0 lead.

That’s pretty much scrappy Cardinals baseball – and it worked.

But there just wasn’t a lot of sustained offense coming from either side after that, and for quite a while, it looked like that might hold up.

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