The Braves spent most of Tuesday night chasing a game that got away from them early, and by the time the ninth inning rolled around, they were down to hoping for one last swing of luck. They got the tying run to the plate, but not much more, and the Cubs walked away with a 7-3 win.
Reynaldo Lopez never really found his footing. He was done after three innings, having faced 17 batters, and the line was rough enough on its own: a 2/2 K/BB ratio and a grounder rate of about 30 percent.
He got through the first inning cleanly, but the second inning turned into the kind of mess that changes a night fast. The sequence went double, single, strikeout, walk, and that loaded the bases for Carson Kelly.
Kelly’s weak contact on an elevated slider still did the job, bringing in the first run.
That might have been the spot to make a move if the Braves were feeling aggressive, but Lopez stayed in and had to deal with presumptive NL MVP Pete Crow-Armstrong. Crow-Armstrong followed with a soft flare on an outside changeup that drove in two more. Lopez came back out for the third and ran into more trouble: a leadoff walk, then a single and a double that pushed the Cubs out to a 5-0 lead.
At that point, Lopez was finished, and AJ Smith-Shawver took over. He kept the game moving and got some help from his defense, but he also never really put the Cubs in a bind with strikeouts or free passes.
The big problem came when he faced Crow-Armstrong again. This time, the result was a two-run homer.
Smith-Shawver wound up going five innings and finishing the game, but over his last 12 batters he had a 1/3 K/BB ratio, plus that homer. The Braves may have saved the bullpen, but the price was a game they never truly got back into.
Atlanta’s offense had its own problems. The final line looked respectable enough - eight hits, five walks - but the damage was mostly cosmetic.
The Braves had only one extra-base hit and put 69.6 percent of their batted balls on the ground. They also grounded into three double plays, which crushed any real chance at a rally.
They didn’t do much against David Peterson, who worked six innings with a 7/3 K/BB ratio. He left after Michael Harris II opened the seventh with a leadoff single.
Javier Assad came in, and Mauricio Dubon hit a grounder that Alex Bregman handled with a good play before throwing wildly, putting runners on the corners. Austin Riley popped out, but Sean Murphy got Atlanta on the board with a slow forceout at second.
Then Mike Yastrzemski worked Assad for seven pitches and turned around a two-run homer, giving the Braves a brief jolt. That was about the extent of the comeback threat.
In the eighth, Drake Baldwin singled off Ryan Rolison, and Matt Olson followed by drawing a four-pitch walk. Ozzie Albies came up next, but his rough September kept rolling when he hit a weak grounder to Bregman that became another double play. Harris couldn’t bring Baldwin home either.
The ninth gave the Braves one last opening against trade pickup Ryan Zeferjahn. He allowed two grounder singles, then struck out Murphy and walked Yastrzemski, which brought Ronald Acuña Jr. to the plate with the tying run in play. Acuña hit the ball hard, but it stayed too low and too close to Nico Hoerner, who turned it into the game-ending double play.
The loss drops the Braves’ division lead to 4.5 games, with the Phillies idle today. The Dodgers also won, and the Braves seem to have mostly accepted that one of the top two seeds is out of reach, which helps explain the Lopez-and-Smith-Shawver approach. Martin Perez has apparently been moved up to start tomorrow, and he’ll face old friend/foe Kevin Gausman.
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