Corbin Burnes shut the Braves down for 6 innings on 2 hits, and a Rowdy Tellez 2 run homer off of Charlie Morton in the bottom of the 7th proved to be the difference.
The Braves had an opportunity to get to Burnes in the 1st after Jorge Soler and Freddie Freeman led off the game with walks, and Soler took 3rd on a passed ball. But Soler tried to score on an Ozzie Albies grounder to the 1st base bag, and was tagged out for a double play. A wild pitch got Freddie to 3rd, but Austin Riley struck out.
The Braves made it interesting in the 9th against Josh Hader, getting the tying run to 3rd base. After another Freeman walk, and a Riley 1-out single, Freddie took 3rd on an Adam Duvall force-out of Riley at 2nd. But, with 2 outs and the tying run on 3rd, Orlando Arcia pinch hit for the left-handed Eddie Rosario, and grounded out to 2nd. The Braves only managed 4 hits; the lone run coming on a 2-out pinch-hit homer by Joc Pederson in the 8th.
The Tellez homer was the 3rd and final hit Morton allowed, striking out 9 in his 6+ innings. Luke Jackson and Tyler Matzek were the only relievers needed. When the Braves can get 6 innings from their starters, they have a good chance when they can avoid the bottom of the bullpen.
Hader threw 20 pitches, and the more looks the Braves get at him, the better they should do against him. Adrian Houser went 2 innings for the Brewers, throwing 26 pitches.
Game 2 on Saturday at 5:07 Eastern on TBS; Max Fried and Brandon Woodruff scheduled.
Thank you, Rusty. I enjoyed the game thoroughly despite the outcome. Both Burnes and Charlie threw great games.
Tfloyd from last thread:
This year, I can have it both ways. Florida can beat Georgia by a million and Georgia can still win the NC. That’s what Dan Mullen gets when he pulls a Kirby.
I would also be rooting for some sort of chaos scenario where the PAC-12, Big 12, and Big 10 all have mediocre, 2-loss champions, Florida beat Georgia on the field, Georgia gets beat handedly by Bama in the SECCG, Kentucky drops a couple games but otherwise looks good, and the playoff committee has a hard decision to make with Georgia AND/OR Florida. NOT likely at all to happen, but it would be fun to have 3 SEC teams that have some sort of argument for why they’re better than Oklahoma, OSU, and Oregon.
But what’s crazy with that scenario is that Kentucky is actually a good football team. So that scenario may not even work because Kentucky would more likely have one loss. This year has not gone at all the way people predicted nationwide.
Mark Stoops has been very underrated at Kentucky. They’ve had a pretty good team for awhile.
I hate to say it, Ryan, but I think we might need a Rally Phil.
I am envious of you college football fans. Imagine the conference of your favorite team being disbanded and most of those teams going to one conference. However the team you spent your life living and dying with was rejected by that conference. Thus, your team ended up in a conference half way around the country. 100 year rivalries gone. My love of the WVU Mountaineers and college football died because of those circumstances.
The Braves and baseball are my only sport now.
Max is going to shut them out today!!
I know you don’t take a pitcher out after six innings if he is pitching a shutout. But your number guys, what is Morton’s ERA after the sixth inning? That high?
@6 My issue isn’t the ERA from the 7th on, it’s that he clearly lost it in the 6th with a bunch of noncompetitive pitches and got bailed out by the brewers swinging out of the zone. When the 7th started and he hit a batter, that should have been it.
Many other playoff games have had the starters removed early; Scherzer, for example, at the first sign of trouble. I know our back end of the bullpen isn’t the best, but everyone is rested and ready for all hands on deck. Someone should have been warm and ready before the HR.
I am a HOF manager after the fact.
I agree with the thought that the Braves lost the game in the 1st. The actual outcome was about the least probable thing that could have happened. Any other regular DP ball except right at 1st would have scored a run. If Soler holds at 3rd, they never would have gotten Freddie at 2nd and we’d have had 2nd and 3rd with one out. I’d have even played for one run in a playoff game and asked Ozzie to bunt. He might have made a hit out of it. Just about any other outcome except what actually happened would have been better.
And, just to poke all you Dawgs and Gators, I remember the 1979 Sugar Bowl and THE greatest goal line stand of all time.
@6, his ERA this year in regular season innings 1-3 was 2.34. In innings 4-6 it was 3.97 (though his components aren’t all that much worse, so maybe there was some sequencing luck involved). It’s a small sample size of only 7.2 innings, but after the 6th, his ERA was over 9. For his career, he’s about half a run of ERA worse in innings 4-6 than in 1-3, and another 6/10 of a run worse in 7+, though in 2019 he did better as the game went on.
One number that caught my attention as showing how much the game has changed: Charlie Morton has been pitching in MLB since 2008. He has 1600+ IP, almost 300 starts and over 200 decisions. In his career, he has only recorded 84 IP after the 6th.
Another one: Morton has earned over 1/3 of his career bWAR this year, 4 of 11.9. He had negative bWAR for his career until his mid-30s.
Was a little bummed after the game last night, so I decided to go to Coles, Charles Bukowski’s favorite bar in downtown L.A., for a couple of pops before I met up w/ my gal for the Bond flick later. It was a 10-minute walk & I had 90 minutes to waste, so why not?
As a got nearer to the bar, I noticed a bunch of helicopters above & when I turned the corner to the bar the police were taping off the street and SWAT team members were surrounding the building directly across the street. Machine guns, shotguns, helmets, Kevlar… the whole 9. The doorman at the bar said there was a shooting on the street & the shooter ran into the building.
Of course, I thought, “Well, maybe I should just get out of here.” But the cops came over to the bar, laid some more police tape & told the doorman that nobody should leave for the moment. Um, OK…
Staying away from the windows, I had a couple of pints as more and more cops showed up outside. I stayed for my 90 minutes, having pleasant/nervous conversation with the staff & hit the bathroom, which had a plaque over a urinal that read “Charles Bukowski pissed here.” OK… I could laugh at that.
In the end, I walked out the front door & asked a cop if I could just leave. He looked around and pointed to the opposite corner from which I arrived. It was a Police Festival for blocks. I hustled back to the hotel & made the Bond flick, which was a thrill-ride blast. (Rob, the ending was fine, I thought.)
Let’s just say that yesterday I would’ve preferred to see only Hollywood drama as opposed to DTLA drama because later I found out that this is what happened:
https://abc7.com/hostage-downtown-la-suspect-dead-police-shooting/11101876/
Yikes.
Go Dogs/Go Braves
ububba, love your stories, oh man, this one was a little too close for comfort. Glad you got out okay and were able to have beer while waiting it out.
Max got this tonight and our guys will hit. Right?! Go Braves.
My prediction: Mad Max shuts them down and the Atlanta offense remembers who they are. Atlanta 5 – 0 starting with a Soler powered HR.
The traditional Braves play here would be to win this game, giving us a renewed sense of hope over the off day. Then lose the game 3 home game. Then jump out to a lead in game 4 behind a gutsy and unexpected starter (Ynoa?), letting hope creep back in. Then their best bullpen arm (Jackson?) blows the lead and they lose game 4.
@14 Then why are you even watching?? This is the greatest game in the world and we are in the playoffs.
The only thing I dislike about playoff time is the weekend fans who barely watch all year then show up only to whine and complain in the playoffs. I’m just grateful to be here. We lost the best player in baseball as well as a top starter yet here we are……4th straight division title.
Braves hitters biting on more bad pitches than my mom watching Shark Tank.
Woodruff looks nasty today. Fried is going to have to match him for us to win.
ububba, the ending was fine. Definitely in for another reboot.
Dawgs look good. Braves need to follow suit.
He’s a free man!
Get ’em Wash.
A song for Ozzie Albies:
Wooo…… I was sorta close. Soler was the first to score, but Fred knocked him in.
Now Ozzie!!
Need a Duvy bomb!
.or not. He has been slumping.
Duvall, swanson, and TDA slumping pretty hard. Riley’s K % has shot up dramatically as well.
Too bad 3 inches cost Albies a HR….at least they finally have a lead!
23 — Maybe Joctober should start Game 3.
@25 I agree.
Max is The Man!!
Woodruff starting to look like he’s losing a bit of control. He’ll probably make it through 6 (if they don’t PH for him this half-inning), but I’d love to see him come out for the 7th. Brewers getting a little better contact off Fried, but he’s looking better than Woodruff.
MVP! Kidding.
Strong young man.
RILEY!!!
I didn’t think he’d gotten that initially, but man…
How can you not love Max Fried? He does it all.
All right first-guessers, who ya got in the 7th? I’ll go with Max.
Edit: Looks like Snit’s got … someone else.
Noooooo …u gotta let Max go back out .. stupid move … there goes game ……. dang it
WoW!! He’s taking Max out? I will never understand Snit. Also, why is he using his #1 pinch hitter here?
I would have stayed with Max, who has been good the 3rd time through the order this season. I dunno, maybe he told Snitker he was done.
This is a mistake.
This umpire is trying to do some Eric Gregg imitations today.
All right, let’s see what happens. It might be all right.
Who the hell is Terrance Gore ????
Gore had that stolen…..too bad about Soler, that was another ball that would’ve been gone with last years ball. Stupid MLB.
Great job wasting the top pinch hitter AND your pinch runner. Snit is an idiot.
@39 He has hung around baseball for years because he is VERY fast. He was in AAA.
@39, career 45 SB, 10 CS counting postseason.
I agreed with taking Fried out, but Jackson isn’t looking great.
@39 according to Statcast, he is the fourth fastest player in MLB.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/terrance-gore-605253?stats=statcast-r-running-mlb
Given Fried’s history of going deep in games, the fact he still looked strong, and our bullpen is weak I absolutely would have brought Fried back out……with a leash.
@45 hard agree.
Over managing by Snit. Max should not have been pulled. Huge mistake they have to weasel out of now
Snitker is the guy who hits on 18 and stays on 16.
OMG, what a horrible ball/strike call by the ump.
Edit: Thank you, Taylor, for striking out anyway.
That Matzek slider at 0-2 was amazing. I can’t believe he didn’t get the call. happy it didn’t matter.
HUGE pitch.
So much for MLB picking the best umpires for postseason.
That ump has been eric greggian all day and not that he gets a pitch in the zo e, he calls it a ball. Typical.
Through the first 16 innings of the series, you couldn’t ask for any more from our starters and you couldn’t expect any less from theirs. It’s a real good series.
What’s better than October baseball?
Well, this is going to replay so he’s presumably out, given our situation with replay.
He’s not?? we got the call? whaaat
They better not overturn that.
Anticlimactic Rosario…..
And LOL at , I think, Contreras yelling at Urias while catching that foul out, and then Urias throwing the ball at him.
Edit: dont quite trust matzek right now….
@39 He was in the Iron Man movies, I think.
This is not going to end well most likely
Not a great idea bringing Matzek out for another inning. He isn’t used to coming back out for another inning. Glad others are warming up.
Edit: Get him out now!
Surprised the announcers didn’t mention that Peterson and Fried came to the Braves organization in the same trade.
DP would be nice here.
Surprised Snit didn’t go to the bullpen already for 3 consecutive RHB.
Edit: Well, not Escobar, but the announcers said he is better from the right hand side.
Whew.
Matzek has been quite a find 🙂
Whew. Pretty sure Brewers only have Narvaez and Bradley Jr. on their bench if they get to the bottom of the order in the 9th. More runs would be nice, though I suppose 3 counts as Will Woom.
What a great pitch by Matzek to get Garcia. Set him up with three straight FBs and K’d him on the offspeed. Fantastic pitch calling and execution.
And how about Matzek after yip’ing on the first batter to correct it and get out of the inning.
What is the deal with Arcia? Is Adrianza hurt? Or Heredia?
Great job by Matzek!! I was clutching too many pearls.
We need more runs.
@67 I am wondering the same.
We needed some Will Woom.
Gulp!!
So, I’ve been waiting to fire up the grill to cook some burgers. Is it too early to do that now?
Am I the only one who would rather see Heredia for Rosario rather than Soler?
This ing guy. WTF
I hate will smith so much. Even if he gets out of this mess.
Edit: better lucky than good, I guess.
@72 Tomlin could hardly be worse
Win, win, win.
I still don’t like him
I’ll take it
Splitting the first 2 games in Milwaukee is a decent outcome. Now we have the home field advantage for 2 out of 3.
Shoooooweeeeeee.
I predicted a 5 – 0 win and we “only” won 3 – 0 but I will take it. (If Ozzie’s double had only been hit a few inches higher.)
I’m down for having Morton start game 4 and Fried game 5. Glad to see Ynoa in the pen today; wouldn’t mind seeing him and/or Smyly piggyback with Anderson Monday and be available in relief for game 5. I guess if they win Monday, Snit will be more likely to go to a Ynoa/Smyly/bullpen game 4 and hope to save Morton & Fried for the next round, but winning this series should come first.
Alan is out of commission for the postseason. Can anyone do a recap for tonight? Reply here if you’re able.
I was very against taking Fried out when we did. It remains a majorly bad decision IMO, but we lived to tell the tale.
Another nailbiter. Better outcome. Stingy pitching means more than half the runs in the series have come via three HR.
Gutsy performances by Jackson, Matzek and Bad Willie to get out of trouble.
For selfish reasons I wish there was another game to watch tomorrow. But the pen could use a rest.
The lady is correct. She predicted a shutout. Many predicted Smith would shit the bed, he did his best.
@67: repeating what I said last night… It’s the stupidly romantic notion that the former Brewer is the best positioned to hurt his former team. Note that with two on and nobody out, Jace Peterson’s ass was still on the bench. Counsell brought him out to lead off an inning, rather than assume he’s ready to deliver a dagger.
I can recap.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2021/10/09/braves-3-brewers-0/