It’s hard to win when the offense only shows up for one inning!
The Atlanta Braves dropped the series to the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3 today, as they were unable to turn another late comeback into another late win. Instead, it was Pittsburgh doing the celebrating at the end as they ended up taking the victory in walk-off fashion.
In what ended up being a pretty nasty trend for the Braves in this series, the offense showed little-to-no signs of life in the early-and-middle portion of this game. All the way through the seventh inning, the Braves had a grand total of one (1) baserunner make it past first base and that was Drake Baldwin after he hit a double in the fourth inning. Other than that, this was another one of those games where the Braves looked listless and bereft of any type of spark or excitement at the plate in this one.
Carmen Mlodzinski ended up pitching a career-high 5.2 innings in this one and he also didn’t come close to giving up a run while he was out there. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this was the best that Mlodzinski has looked in his career and while he definitely deserves his fair share of the credit when it comes to helping push the Pirates in this one, this was also another example of this Braves team simply pulling a disappearing act at the plate for large portions of this series in Pittsburgh.
For a while, it seemed like the fifth inning was going to be the decisive one in this game. That was when the Pirates strung together some offense and went ahead in pretty frustrating fashion for the Braves. Pittsburgh had two men on with two out before a double steal put both runners in scoring position. That ended up being consequential, as Jared Triolo ended up scoring on a passed ball from Drake Baldwin that broke the deadlock and put the Pirates in front. A sacrifice fly from Andrew McCutchen made it 2-0 and then Joey Bart continued to be the toughest out for the Braves to get as he blooped one out to right to make it a 3-0 lead for the Pirates.
That’s how it stayed and Chris Sale’s day eventually ended after 5.2 innings pitched. While he did strike out eight batters and only walked two, it just feels like Sale is in a situation where he has to be absolutely perfect in his outings. While this outing was far from perfect, it definitely wasn’t one of those outings where you felt like Sale would’ve been a deserved loser. However, he left the game with the Pirates up three and thats just how things have been going for Sale lately.
Fortunately for the Braves, Enyel De Los Santos kept the Pirates quiet for the next couple of innings in order to make sure that the deficit stayed at three runs once this one entered the latter portions.
Once again, we had to wait until the game was getting closer to the end before we saw Atlanta’s offense show any type of life. They actually got a rally going to the point where there were bases loaded and two outs for a pinch-hitting Sean Murphy at the plate. Brian Snitker’s choice to go with Murphy against Joey Wentz ended up paying off, as Murphy hit a bases-clearing double into the gap in left-center that tied the game up at three runs apiece.
The game stayed tied until the ninth, which is when the Pirates got the better of Raisel Iglesias in his attempt to take the game into extras. Adam Frazier led off the ninth with a single and he was joined on base by Ke’Bryan Hayes. A groundout that left Frazier stranded at third gave a little bit of hope and the Braves did try to set up the double play ball by intentionally walking Andrew McCutchen. It ended up not working out, as Joey Bart capped off what was a great weekend at the plate for him by hitting the grounder that plated Frazier in order to win the game and the series for the Pirates.
The verdict on this one is similar to the loss on Friday: It’s hard to win any game when the offense disappears for all but one inning. Chris Sale didn’t deliver his best performance but also giving up three runs shouldn’t be a death sentence in any given game. With all due respect to Pittsburgh’s pitching staff, this was a very disappointing weekend for the Braves at the plate and their quest to reach .500 continues to get trickier and trickier. They’ll be right back at it tomorrow night at 7:15 p.m. ET at home against the Nationals, where they’ll surely be looking to get the sour taste of this defeat out of their mouths.