Atlanta Braves Replay: Takeaways from Game 3 of 1995 World Series

We continue our celebration of 1995 World Series week with a recap of an exciting game three between the Atlanta Braves and Cleveland Indians with a few of the biggest takeaways from an extra-inning affair.

I don’t remember much from 1995 as I was only 4 years old at the time. However, I do vividly remember watching the World Series with my dad as the Atlanta Braves and baseball are a big deal in our family.

Rewatching this series has been an absolute treat as an adult especially since I know much more about the game now than I did back then. This Braves team was an incredibly special and talented one.

Should have been an easy series win when we look back on the roster this team had, right? Well, the problem is, so did their opponent. The Cleveland Indians had arguably the best offensive team in all of baseball in 1995.

It was incredible to get to watch so many talented players on the field, including multiple future hall-of-famers. To see Chipper Jones, Eddie Murray, John Smoltz, Jim Thome, and more play in the same series is something I feel fortunate to be able to re-visit.

After taking a 2-0 lead in the series, the Atlanta Braves looked to assert their dominance even more on the road in game three.

With the starting staff showing their ability to shut down the powerful Cleveland offense in game two, Atlanta hoped that trend would continue with power pitching John Smoltz on the mound.

Things looked promising early on as Atlanta took a 1-0 lead in the first inning thanks to an RBI single from Fred McGriff (who would go 3 for 5 with 2 RBI in this game).

Scoring first wasn’t as great as it seemed for either team during this series. The team that scored first ended up losing the game each time. So, I think you know where this is heading.

John Smoltz struggled mightily in this game as he struggled to get his pitches passed the bats of the Indians offense. He allowed 2 runs on 2 hits in the first inning but appeared to have settled down in the second inning as he struck out the side.

Unfortunately, that was not the case as the Cleveland offense smacked Smoltz around during the bottom of the third. The Indians would have 4 straight hits to open up the inning and scored two more runs to extend their lead to 4-1.

The hall-of-fame pitcher was able to strike out Eddie Murray for the first out of the inning but would walk Jim Thome to load the bases.

Manager Bobby Cox had no choice but to pull his starter after just 2.1 innings of work. Luckily for Bobby, he had a good bullpen and a team that was built to come back from a 3-run deficit.

The Atlanta offense stayed rather quiet all evening thanks to some excellent pitching from Charles Nagy. Nagy had his splitter and changeup working well all night. Nagy finished with a line of 7 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, BB, 4 K.

He held Atlanta at bay until the 6th inning when Fred McGriff smacked a no-doubt home run over the head of a young Manny Ramirez to give the Braves some momentum and cut the lead down to two runs.

Ryan Klesko decided he would get in on the fun as he led off the top of the 7th with an absolute bomb to left-center field to cut the deficit to just one run.

Nagy was able to escape without any further damage and one could assume that was his final inning as the Braves seemed to be starting to figure something out.

Meanwhile, the Indians would score a run in the bottom of the 7th off of Kent Mercker to extend their lead to 5-3.

Luckily for Atlanta, Nagy was on the mound to start the 8th inning and you could just sense the tide was about to turn.

It was a massive inning for the Braves offense as they scored 3 runs in the inning to give them a 6-5 lead. It took all of the air out of the stadium and certainly looked like Atlanta had game 3 all but wrapped up.

Marquis Grissom scored on a single from Luis Polonia and this led to Nagy being pulled from the game.

He was replaced by former Brave Paul Assenmacher and he did not have a good time.

Luis Polonia stole second base, Chipper Jones walked, and both runners advanced on a fly ball hit by Fred McGriff. Polonia would then score the tying run from third base on an error and ended the night for Assenmacher.

Julian Tavarez was tasked with keeping the game tied and giving the Indians a chance to bounce back in the 8th inning. However, Chipper would score the go-ahead run thanks to a Mike Devereaux single.

I feel like I just heard some of you say, Mike who?

Devereaux was acquired from the White Sox earlier in the season after batting .306 in 92 games. He came up big for the Braves in the NLCS and was the MVP of that series. So I’m sure it didn’t surprise anyone that he came through in a moment like this.

Things got tricky in the bottom of the 8th as Greg McMichael allowed 2 baserunners with just 1 out in the inning. This led Bobby Cox to bring in Mark Wohlers much earlier than I’m sure he’d have liked to.

Wohlers promptly allowed a game-tying double to right-field that broke the hearts of Braves fans everywhere. Tough to work that hard for the lead just immediately have it disappear. Wohlers worked out of the inning with a strikeout and groundout.

Mark would be a workhorse out of the bullpen as the game went into extra innings. He shut down the Indians 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 9th. He also had a fairly quiet bottom of the 10th inning but that was, of course, the end of the line for the Atlanta closer.

It was up to Alejandro Pena to continue to keep the Cleveland offense at bay. Unfortunately, he was unable to do so as the Indians had a leadoff double to start the bottom of the 11th inning and who else but Eddie Murray drove in the winning run with an RBI single.

Game 3 was a 7-6 final in favor of the Cleveland Indians and wasn’t for the faint of heart.

While Atlanta lost this game, it was an exciting one to watch and immediately made me think back to the team we had in 2019. They had a lot of fight in them between the veterans and rookies. Everyone in that clubhouse knew they were meant for this stage and no lead was safe for their opponents.

Unlucky for Atlanta, the Indians thought the same way and gave them a taste of their own medicine. I’m sure this was a hard loss to deal with but it’s one that this team had to learn to shake off if they were to keep control of the series.

What are your thoughts/memories from this game? Let us know in the comments below!