Braves walk off Nats in un-slugfest, 4-3

A lot of hard-hit balls led to a blown ninth-inning lead on a routine grounder and errant throw, but the Braves hit some hard grounders to walk it off

This game was an un-slugfest in every sense of this term that I just now made up. The Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals crushed the ball all night, yet only seven total runs ended up crossing the plate, with the Braves scoring their decisive fourth in walkoff fashion after blowing a two-run lead in the prior half-inning. Let’s go chronologically, for once.

The fact that this game was going to have mondo mashing to not-so-much avail should’ve been evident from the first: Grant Holmes struck out two, but also gave up an insane 86.6 mph bat speed barrel to James Wood… that went 109 mph off the bat but right to Eli White for an out. In the bottom of the inning, it was the Braves’ turn to not get anything for their efforts, as Alex Verdugo hit a barreled leadoff double that just missed becoming a homer, and then the Braves had three other 97+ mph flyouts. Of those, two were hit too high to be of any danger, but Matt Olson missed a homer to left by not that much.

Holmes had an easy second, and then the Braves went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning on six pitches… with two hard-hit liners and a hard-hit groundout.

Holmes issued a leadoff walk in the third, but erased it with a (weakly hit) double play ball, and finished off his first trip through the order with a strikeout. The Braves then had a two-out rally with a walk, smashed singles by Olson and Marcell Ozuna, and a weak bloop by Michael Harris II. Sean Murphy somehow managed an infield single on a slow roller up the middle, but Ozzie Albies somehow managed to hit a ball sub-87 mph but also 300 feet for the third out, capping the rally at two runs.

Wood then immediately got one of those runs back by annihilating a 2-0 pitch from Holmes into left field. Later in the frame, with the tying run on first and two outs, Luis Garcia Jr. hit a 100 mph backspin drifter to deep center, which prompted one of the better catches (that’s an understatement) of the year from Harris:

The Braves then went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the inning, but with another hard-hit ball.

It seemed kind of iffy that Grant Holmes was going to go out for the fifth after giving up a homer and a near-homer in the prior frame (not to mention some other things like a couple of obliterated balls that went foul), but he somehow managed to survive that frame, despite a hard-hit leadoff single and then another barreled out. Fortune repaid the Braves in kind in the bottom of the inning, as Riley got a hold of one that died on the track for the third barreled out of the game. But, not long after, Ozuna said “pish posh” to the whole barreled out concept and absolutely destroyed a Jake Irvin offering for what Statcast calls the fourth-longest homer of the year so far:

Were we done with the fireworks? Not at all. Holmes went out for the sixth, which featured the top of Washington’s lineup for a third time, and (brain asplode) survived it, but not without two more hard-hit outs. Ozzie Albies then continued the trend and his own personal misery by hitting a hard liner that was snared out of the air for yet another hard-hit out. See, un-slugfest.

Holmes finally gave way in the seventh, after a barreled double (not an out!) by Garcia. On came Dylan Lee, which seemed iffy because he was going to be facing a switch-hitter and then a righty bat, but Lee struck out both in short order. Holmes ended the day with a 4/1 K/BB ratio and a homer allowed — he pitched pretty well in general, buoyed by his earlier frames, but everyone is gonna have an ugly xERA after today.

Jake Irvin, one-time Braves nemesis, was also done after six. He had a 1/2 K/BB ratio, his third straight game with more walks than strikeouts, and was very “there but for the grace of God goes my run prevention” given the barreled outs. That’s why, if you’re a pitcher, you participate in the un-slugfest, kids. Sign up today.

A combination of Jose Ferrer (no, not that one) and Jorge Lopez shut down the Braves in the seventh, featuring another hard-hit out, a bloop single by Riley, and then back-to-back strikeouts by Olson and Ozuna. The Ozuna one was weird: Jorge Lopez threw him four sliders, with the last one hung middle-middle, but Ozuna either didn’t think he was going to get it or just didn’t get its timing down, because he swung right through the meatiest of meatballs.

Daysbel Hernandez came on for the eighth, and, uh… well… it was an inning. It started with a leadoff double that Harris almost caught but didn’t (we’ll give him a pass after his earlier catch). Then, Hernandez plunked a guy, putting the tying runs on base and losing the platoon advantage to the lefty-heavy Washington lineup. But then — thanks, un-slugfest! — CJ Abrams grounded into a double play despite mashing the ball at 108 mph, just right to Albies, and then Hernandez bounced back to strike out Wood. Abrams swung over the top of a 3-1 slider, while Wood saw five sliders and nothing else, and took all of them except the out-of-the-zone one he chased to end the frame. Harris fulfilled the needed hard-hit out quota for the Braves in the bottom of the eighth against Jackson Rutledge.

So, onto the ninth, with Raisel Iglesias on the hill. It was such a weird inning compared to the rest of the game, and really, the season. The Nationals put the tying runs on base on two flare-y hits with one out. Guys, this is the un-slugfest, not the game the Braves just played against the Pirates, come on. Josh Bell followed by hitting a comebacker right to Iglesias, but the Braves’ closer botched picking it up multiple times and just barely got Bell out at first, putting the tying run in scoring position. Then, up came Dylan Crews, who fell behind 1-2, battled Iglesias back to 3-2, and then weakly hit a sinker right to shortstop, where…

…look, Nick Allen isn’t hitting or anything, but he’s been elite defensively. He has +6 OAA-based runs, already, and it’s May 12. He’s not going to add 40 runs of value over 600 PAs, but that’s what he’s on pace for…

…but he absolutely bungled the easy grounder hit to him, double-clutching and then firing wide of Olson at first, letting the tying run score.

I dunno, man. The baseball gods punishing Allen for flying too close to the sun defensively? You decide.

Anyway, Iglesias was not out of the woods yet as he issued a walk, but eventually got a strikeout to send the game to the bottom of the inning, where the hard-hit stuff continued.

Fortunately, it continued in a way conducive to a walkoff win for Atlanta. Eli White started the inning by crushing a ball towards the second baseman that smashed off his wrist and careened way up in the air for a “single.” Allen then did the bunt thing (un-slugfest), which set up Alex Verdugo for another hard-hit grounder that did not turn into an out, but did turn into a win, as his 103 mph bouncer up the middle split the defense and let White easily score the winning run.

The Braves will try to get to .500 again tomorrow.