Chris Sale dominates as Braves bash Zack Wheeler in 9-3 win

A breezy win? In this economy?

On a day where the Atlanta Braves seemingly lost promising rookie AJ Smith-Shawver for the season and suffered another incredulous one-run loss, the club bounced back in the night cap of the doubleheader with a breezy 9-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Chris Sale was fantastic once again. The reigning Cy Young winner tossed six scoreless innings with just two hits (both singles) and three walks, striking out eight in the process. The Braves needed their ace to stop the bleeding after an atrocious game one loss that saw AJ Smith-Shawver exit early with an injury, and Sale stepped up in a major way. After a ridiculously unlucky start, Sale now owns a 3.06 ERA with nearly identical supporting numbers across 12 starts. He is quite good at throwing baseballs.

Sale also became the fastest pitcher in MLB history to 2500 strikeouts by innings pitched. (H/T Jon Morosi of MLB Network)

The offense faced a big challenge in Zack Wheeler and hit the veteran righty hard once again in 2025. It was mostly quiet in the early innings, but Austin Riley got things going in the 4th with a two-run double down the line that made it 2-0. The suddenly red-hot Ozzie Albies then homered off Wheeler’s splitter that just cleared the right field wall to make it 4-0.

As they have struggled to do seemingly all season long, the offense continued to put pressure on the opposing pitching staff by scoring again in the sixth and seventh. With the bases loaded and two outs, Luke Williams — who entered the game in place of the injured Nick Allen — smacked a ball just past Alec Bohm at first base to score two more runs. It was a nice moment for Williams, who did not play well in the opener of the doubleheader.

In the seventh, Austin Riley homered for just the third time all month with a monstrous blast to make it 8-0 and push the game well in-hand.

The one bummer of the game was shortstop Nick Allen getting hit on the hand by a pitch early on. Allen initially stayed in the game but departed an inning later. We’ll await news on the Gold Glove frontrunner, but given the current state of the shortstop position in the organization, a significant injury would be pretty crushing.

The Braves now head back to Atlanta for a six-game home stand that’ll begin with the Boston Red Sox on Friday. It’ll be Grant Holmes, who is coming off a terrific start against the Padres, against Lucas Giolito, who has really struggled this season. Atlanta got to Giolito for six runs over four innings in Fenway two weeks ago. First pitch is 7:15 p.m. ET on Apple TV+ exclusively.