The Atlanta Braves in elimination games: bad things happen

Here’s another piece of recent Atlanta Braves history that needs to be reversed tonight.

The elimination game.  The cliches are abundant:  “win or go home”, “all or nothing”, “all hands on deck”, and such.  For the Atlanta Braves, though, the “anything can happen” phrase is one they know all too well.

2019

A Game 5 in the best-of-5 series vs. the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Braves clearly had the better team, but the “big hit” eluded them in a critical Game 4 loss, which led to — yep:  that infamous 10-run first inning in Game 5.

Everything after that inning was anti-climactic.

2018

This was a 3-1 series win by the Dodgers, but in that 4th game, the Braves actually held a 2-1 lead after the completion of the 5th inning.  This after the emotional Game 3 win featuring that Ronald Acuna grand slam… so Atlanta did survive 1 elimination game here.

Alas in Game 4, Jonny Venters held serve for 1 inning, but not a second:  the Dodgers forced 3 singles through that scored 2 runs, and then sealed the deal with a 3-run homer in the 7th as Chad Sobotka had nothing to give that day.

2013

Another NLDS against the Dodgers, with the blue-man crew winning in 4 games.

The Braves were winning the elimination game 3-2 in the 8th inning, but this was the Juan Uribe homer game where Craig Kimbrel became the lonely closer who was outstanding in his own bullpen… but who never got to the mound.

2012

Let’s usher in the era of the Wild Card by being a Wild Card team!  Great — since the Braves got to host this contest against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Well, the Braves started well with 2 quick runs in the 2nd, thanks to a David Ross homer.  In the 4th, however, Kris Medlen ran into big trouble and the Cards got 3 runs on 2 hits and a rare error (by Chipper).

The Cards tacked on 3 more runs into the 7th, but Atlanta got one of those back in the bottom half to trail 6-3.

Then with 2 runners on and 1 out in the 8th, there’s the infamous and innocuous notation in the box score “Andrelton Simmons… popout to shortstop”.

This was the “Infield Fly Rule” game — a second out that was never actually made, but one that still counted, thanks to umpire Sam Holbrook, who apparently forgot that he wasn’t manning 3rd base that night (he was the left field line umpire, and thus still had the play roughly parallel to his position).

So instead of a bases-loaded, none out situation, the rally was effectively killed and the Braves started planning their Fall vacations.