I’m not sure if trying to walk is always, or even usually, going to pay off, but boy, it did the business tonight.
Allow me to set the stage, if you will.
The fifth inning of this game featured two teams. One has a top-five record in baseball, and a top-two offense by xwOBA. The other is well below .500 with a middling team xwOBA. The first team has a converted reliever on the hill, who has the curious small-sample artifact of a non-ghastly split the third time through the lineup. The second team has a pitching phenom on the hill, but one that’s still recovering from serious injury and, in the process, has accumulated an absolutely awful third-time-through split.
Both of those guys walked the 19th batter they faced in a tie game. One team removed theirs after 4 2/3, one team had their starter go six. If you somehow read recaps before knowing the score (or reading the headline), then you might think this is going in a predictable fashion: Braves hang their starter out to dry and lose, while the other team’s bullpen saves the day. But, in a season where the Braves have found seemingly every possible way to lose (and it’s only June!)… that’s not what happened at all. Instead, the Braves walked their way to victory, sweeping away the Mets and continuing to do the arduous work of trundling back into contention.
Yes, they walked their way to victory. To be clear: the Braves drew nine, count ‘em, nine walks in this game, more than they had hits. Two of those walks came with the bases loaded and gave them a lead; they broke the game open later. Spencer Strider had another excellent outing against a very good hitting team, and might be back on the warpath. The season hasn’t been fun, but sweeping the Mets is, and that’s what happened.
Alright, let’s get into the details. The game started inauspiciously: Strider got a weak grounder after a couple of two-out singles to throw up his first goose egg, but then Clay Holmes got three instances of weak contact on relatively slow swings from the top of the Braves’ order. The Mets scored first, using two weak bloops and a stolen base off Strider to plate a run. Drake Baldwin drew the first walk for Atlanta, but was stranded.
The third started with a leadoff “double” by Brandon Nimmo, who is basically Strider’s nemesis/Nimmo-sis at this point. I say “double” because left fielders that aren’t Alex Verdugo probably have a chance of catching that ball, but Verdugo sure didn’t. Nimmo actually stole third later in the inning, but Strider and the defense stranded him via a pop-out, strikeout, weak groundout sequence. In the bottom of the inning, the Braves seemingly had a good chance to tie up as Nick Allen inexplicably doubled ahead of Ronald Acuña Jr., but the latter went fishing early and mishit a sweeper off the plate into a weak groundout. Though Verdugo walked to extend the inning, Holmes struck out Riley in a full count with a sweeper way off the plate. (Austin Riley’s WPA vortex, a feature of seasons past, has resurfaced in full force this season.)
Strider struck out the side in the fourth, thanks to his trusty slider. The Braves then converted a leadoff walk, grounder single, and relatively weak liner single from Ozzie Albies into a run. Allen nearly drew a walk, but was rung up on a very borderline, top-of-the-zone-ish pitch to end that rally. And that’s how we got to the fifth.
As stated, Strider issued a walk to batter number 19, on a high slider that was not any worse than the pitch that had rung up Allen minutes earlier. Things looked ominous with the Nimmo-sis due up, but Strider eviscerated him with a down-and-in slider; Juan Soto weakly hit another slider to second to end the inning. Then things got wacky.
Holmes waked Acuña to start the bottom of the fifth. Verdugo struck out, but Riley smashed a very hard single to put runners on the corners. Olson then also drew a walk (after a courtesy offering at a 3-0 fastball that he somehow fouled back). Up came Marcell Ozuna, who found himself in a 2-2 count after five pitches, all way off the plate. Pitch number six was a sinker at the bottom edge of the zone and Ozuna took it for some reason… and was also rung up. Trying to walk: it’s a dangerous game. So, up came Drake Baldwin with two outs. Again, there was a 2-2 count. Holmes tried the high pitch again, but it was too high. He then tried to get Baldwin low-and-in, but Baldwin took it, and blam — the Braves led, basically on walks.
Oh, but we weren’t done there, though Holmes was. Huascar Brazoban came in, and did what was once thought to be an impossible task: walk Ozzie Albies, on four pitches, no less. Two of those pitches were so far from the zone that they don’t even show up on a truncated Gameday image. Michael Harris II decided, I guess, to also try to walk… except Brazoban threw him three pitches in the zone (two of which Harris took to fall behind 0-2), and then got a weak grounder on a nowhere-near fourth pitch to end that rally.
At this point, the Mets had crumpled, much like a mark that eventually realizes that those guys he was playing pool with were only pretending to be both earnest and not particularly good. Strider got two hard-hit balls for outs in the sixth before a strikeout to end his day. He finished with a stellar 8/1 K/BB ratio in six innings of work, exorcising some of both his early-season struggles and third-time-through split demons in one go. Holmes, meanwhile, had a really bad outing, with a 5/6 K/BB ratio (with some of those strikeouts being questionable takes) — his worst start by xFIP so far this season.
The Braves tacked on more against Brazoban in the sixth. There was a deflection off the pitcher actually went the Braves’ way for once, and two walks later (with Verdugo making another out in there, please save us from him, anyone that reads this), Matt Olson blooped in a double to make it a 6-1 game. Baldwin later capped the scoring with a seeing-eye single.
And that was really it, due to the aforementioned crumpling. Enyel De Los Santos got two strikeouts and a comebacker. Dylan Lee (in this game for some reason?) also went 1-2-3, including a backwards K of Soto. Rafael Montero came on in the most appropriate situation for him (a six-run difference in the game), and got two strikeouts of his own to giftwrap the game and the sweep.
Really, the only disappointing part of this game was that Acuña went 0-for-3 with two walks, which snapped his streak of increasing his already-absurd batting line for eight consecutive games. He’ll get to start a new such streak tomorrow against his wayward piscine children. Other than that, the walks were mostly the game — Olson had the game’s only barrel with a garbage time double in the eighth, and no one homered. The Braves will take it, they’ve got so much more work to do. As for the Mets, well… they’ve now lost six straight and have to fight for the division they’ve fallen into a first-place tie for in Philadelphia this weekend. Have fun, boys.