Chris Sale gave the Braves exactly what they needed Thursday night, and maybe a little more than they should have asked for.
With Atlanta closing in on a 6-2 win over the Phillies in Game 3, Sale came out of the bullpen in the eighth inning and erased Bryce Harper with four pitches, sending Truist Park into a roar. Then, instead of handing the ninth to Raisel Iglesias, the Braves brought Sale back out again. He struck out Otto Lopez to finish it off and cap a clinching victory that finally ended Atlanta’s postseason drought in series play since the 2021 World Series.
That kind of scene was the kind that sticks. But it also raised the obvious question: what does it mean for what comes next?
Walt Weiss said the decision wasn’t one he planned on forcing.
“First of all, I was not going to go to Chris Sale and ask him to pitch tonight,” Weiss said. “I didn’t want to put him in that position.”
Sale made the move himself. As soon as he got to the ballpark Thursday afternoon, he told Weiss he felt great. The two talked it over, and the left-hander wound up becoming the exclamation point on a night that already featured Michael Harris II’s electric three-run homer in the first inning.
For Atlanta, the gamble made sense in the moment. Sale had already thrown 95 stressful pitches two days earlier, but he has been handled carefully all season and responded with one of the best seasons of his career. He had at least five days of rest in 25 of his 27 starts, posted a 2.16 ERA, struck out 200 batters in 162 ⅔ innings and turned in his best WHIP since 2018 at 0.984.
Sale said the whole thing felt bigger than one night.
"Unbelievable. I'm just thankful for the opportunity, honestly," Sale said.
"This could not be more of a group effort. This was basically a culmination of our entire year.
All hands on deck. Everyone is doing everything they can to just get a win for this team."
Now the Braves have to figure out the price of that moment. Sale is projected to start Game 2 against the Dodgers, and that was already set to come on just four days of rest. After 1 ⅓ innings Thursday, there’s a real question whether he’s still on track for Sunday, or whether Atlanta has complicated its own pitching plan.
Weiss wasn’t offering any answers yet.
"I don't know. I have no idea," Weiss said.
"We weren't even worried about that. It was just, 'Put this thing down and then we'll have those conversations later.'
But yeah, we haven't even talked about that. It was all about tonight."
Fair enough, at least in the heat of the moment. The Braves had the game in hand, but they still rode their ace out of the bullpen anyway. It gave them the jolt they wanted, the celebration they needed and the kind of emotional lift teams remember.
The only question now is whether Sale can give them one more, or whether Thursday night took too much out of an arm Atlanta still needs badly.
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Atlanta will have to piece together innings with other options, including AJ Smith-Shawver and JR Ritchie, and that puts even more pressure on a staff trying to navigate one of the postseasons toughest lineups. The Dodgers were already a demanding matchup, and now the Braves have to find a way through it without one of the pitchers they were counting on to help steady the middle of games. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Found An Unlikely October Hero Right Before The Dodgers Series
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For a club headed into the Dodgers series, it was a reminder of how quickly postseason roles can change. One relievers regular-season status can matter far less than his ability to get outs when the margin tightens, and Kerrs outing was the latest example of a forgotten name becoming part of the October story. [Read more 🡒]