Braves blow the save in the 9th, walk off Marlins in 10th

The Braves made it a little more exciting than it needed to be but they finish off the sweep of Miami.

The Atlanta Braves beat the Miami Marlins 4-3, Wednesday night with an exciting extra-inning, walk-off to complete a 3-game sweep and maintain the best record in baseball.

Things started very well for Atlanta and right away. In the first, Ronald Acuńa Jr reached on a lead-off walk, took second-base on his 11th stolen of the season, moved to third on a Michael Harris single, and then scored after Miami starts Sixto Sanchez did a fake pick-off to second base. The problem was there was no runner on second base, and the umpires promptly called a balk, scoring Acuńa from third and moving Harris into scoring position. Marcell Ozuna followed shortly after with an RBI single and the Braves had an early 2-0 lead.

On the mound, Reynaldo Lopez looked fantastic once again, continuing his strong beginning to the season. Lopez came out strong in the first, getting a 1-2-3 inning with 2 strikeouts and a groundout. His only blemish of the evening came in the second inning when Jesus Sanchez tagged him for a solo home run to make it a 2-1 game. Lopez promptly struck out the next two hitters.

From there, Lopez dominated. He finished with 7 innings pitched, 6 strikeouts, 10 groundouts, 3 hits and just the 1 earned run allowed. For the season, Lopez now has an 0.72 ERA, the result of throwing 25 innings and allowing 2 earned runs all season, with 24 strikeouts to just 8 walks.

The offense added another run in the 3rd inning when Matt Olson lined a single to right fielder Jesus Sanchez, who misplayed the hop and got behind for a double. Ozuna followed with his second Rbi single of the night to make the score 3-1 Atlanta. The hit for Olson snapped and 0-25 streak, the longest hitless streak of Olson’s career. Ozuna finished the night 3-4 with 2 RBI and for the season now has 1.094 OPS.

After Joe Jimenez pitched a perfect 8th, Raisel Iglesias was given the 9th for his 8th save of the season. It did not go to plan. The Marlins started the inning with three straight singles to load the bases with no one out. Josh Bell hit a grounder to Matt Olson that bounced off his glove into foul territory and all the way into dugout, to allow the tying run to score. Iglesias did an incredible job after that getting soft contact grounders and strikeouts that kept the game tied, including an incredible play for Orlando Arcia, gunning down a runner at home. The Braves didn’t score in the bottom of the 9th and to extras we went.

From there, AJ Minter threw a scoreless 10th, including striking out Jazz Chisholm with the bases loaded and gave Atlanta the chance to walk it off in the bottom of the 10th. And that’s exactly what they did. It took 2 pitches:

With the win, the Braves move to 17-6 on the season, the best record in baseball while the Marlins fall to 6-20, the worst record in the National League and the second word record in baseball. Atlanta has an off-day on Thursday before welcoming the Guardians to town over the weekend.