The Braves are headed into the Wild Card Series, and the final tune-up against Cincinnati offered a little bit of everything: a scare for Ronald Acuña Jr., a milestone night for Chris Sale, a walkoff from Mauricio Dubón, and one last reminder that Atlanta’s pitching depth is getting a real test at the worst possible time.
Tuesday’s 4-0 loss to the Reds was mostly forgettable on the scoreboard, but it did come with one major sigh of relief. Acuña fouled a ball off the only part of his lower leg not covered in armor, and for a moment the Braves had to sweat it out. The good news came quickly: the X-ray and CT scan were both negative, and Acuña only needed a night of rest to deal with the shin contusion.
JR Ritchie got the start and handled himself well over five innings. The only real blemish was a home run allowed to Elly De La Cruz, and that was enough to keep Atlanta off balance in a game where the bats never got going. It was the Braves’ 10th shutout of the season.
The next night was much more lively. Chris Sale came into Wednesday needing 10 strikeouts to reach 200 for the season for the ninth time, and he got there in a 3-2 Braves win.
Walt Weiss said afterward that he would have preferred not to push Sale to 97 pitches, but Sale was going to stay in as long as it took once the milestone was within reach. Sal Stewart even helped the cause by not challenging the strikeout pitch for No. 200, which, as noted, was a little outside.
Atlanta still had to work for its runs. Andrew Abbott kept the Braves quiet for much of the night, but Matt Olson tied things up with his 41st homer in the sixth, and Austin Riley matched it again with a homer in the seventh. After that, the game moved to extras, where Brent Suter shut down the Reds in order in the 10th and Mauricio Dubón delivered the winning dribbler that brought home DaShawn Keirsey Jr. from third.
Thursday was the wild one. Cincinnati blasted three homers - from Carlos Jorge, Héctor Rodríguez and Elly De La Cruz - and that power surge helped the Reds take a 7-6 win in the finale. Those three Reds players have combined for 37 home runs, and 30 of them belong to De La Cruz, which tells you plenty about how much damage Cincinnati got from its big bats in this series.
Atlanta did plenty on offense, too. The Braves jumped out fast with four runs in the first inning off Brady Singer, and Austin Riley added another homer in the fifth to help tie the game at 5-5.
Mike Yastrzemski’s go-ahead single in the fifth ended up being Atlanta’s last run, though, because Héctor Rodríguez answered with a two-run homer off AJ Smith-Shawver that flipped the game back to Cincinnati. The Braves played clean defense and kept scoring chances alive, but the pitching never quite held up.
The series also left a few bigger takeaways hanging over the clubhouse. Martín Pérez won’t be available until the NLCS, if Atlanta gets there.
Dubón finally got his walkoff hit. Sale reached 200 strikeouts.
Acuña came out healthy. And Ritchie may have strengthened his case for a postseason roster spot with another solid outing.
Now the Braves are officially locked into the No. 3 seed and will begin the Wild Card Series on September 29. They finished the season having dropped 13 games against the Reds, Giants and Mets, and while that didn’t keep them out of the bracket, it did cost them a shot at the bye.
That’s the part that lingers. The division is theirs, but the road through October just got a little longer.
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Braves Deadline Plan Suddenly Looks Risky For One Clear Reason
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Still, the deadline moves did not solve the bigger problem hanging over the roster. Atlantas offense has been inconsistent, and the rotation behind the top three options remains awfully light with Bryce Elder and Martin Perez sidelined. That leaves manager Walt Weiss trying to piece together a postseason plan with limited major-league experience on the mound, a reality that makes the Braves deadline strategy look a lot more precarious than it did a week ago. [Read more 🡒]