The Braves overcame a 4 – 2 deficit to tie the game in the bottom of the 8th, then walked it off on Eddie Rosario‘s 2 out RBI single in the 9th. The Braves have walked off consecutive games in the 9th, and lead the series 2 games to 0.
Rosario went 4 for 5, and in addition to the game winner, started off the critical 8th inning rally with a single. Eddie took 2nd on a Freddie Freeman fly ball to left, then scored on an Ozzie Albies single to right. It was aggressive baserunning so late in the game with 1 out and a 2 run deficit, but a perfect slide made the difference. An Austin Riley double later, and the Braves had tied the score. All the damage was charged to Julio Urias, pitching in relief in between starts.
Travis d’Arnaud led off the decisive 9th with a bloop single off Brusdar Graterol, however Dansby Swanson‘s attempted sacrifice forced pinch runner Cristian Pache at 2nd. Guillermo Heredia‘s attempt to hit resulted in the desired dribbler, however, and Swanson took 2nd as Heredia was put out. Kenley Jansen relieved Graterol, and Rosario smoked the first pitch up the middle, eating up Corey Seager and into center field. In the 3rd inning on the 18th of May, there might have been some thought as to charging that as an error, but there was no way any home scorer was going to be deny a playoff game winning hit on that clutch smite.
The Dodgers struck in the top of the first off Ian Anderson with Seager delivering a 2 run homer. The Braves tied it in the 4th on a 2 run, 454 footer from Joc Pederson, .
Anderson lasted only 3 innings, and Dodgers starter Max Scherzer left after 4 1/3, with what he described as a “dead arm.” To get through 6 innings, the Braves were going to have to turn to some pitchers they have heretofore tried to stay away from in the playoffs, but Jacob Webb worked around a walk in the 6th with some 2 out help from Tyler Matzek, and Chris Martin pitched an uneventful 8th.
It was in between off Matzek and Luke Jackson that the Dodgers took their final lead. A Matzek walk to Mookie Betts led to a stolen base and an intentional walk to Will Smith. Jackson relieved, and hit Justin Turner with a pitch to load the bases. Chris Taylor then dumped a blooper in front of Heredia, who had replaced Adam Duvall in center as part of a double switch. Heredia whiffed on the first bounce, resulting in 2 runs and a charitable double.
Jesse Chavez and A.J. Minter continued their good playoff work in the 4th and 5th. Our Will Smith picked up the win, picking up a pair of strikeouts after Trea Turner pinned Rosario’s back to the left field fence in making the 1st out.
The series moves to Los Angeles Tuesday at 5:08 EDT on TBS; Charlie Morton and Walker Buehler scheduled.
Thank you, Rusty. Great recap of a most enjoyable game.
Pitch a good one, Mort.
FYI:
There are 5 third-generation MLB-player families:
The Bells (Gus, Buddy, David, Mike)
The Boones (Ray, Bob, Bret, Aaron)
The Colemans (Joe, Joe Jr., Casey)
The Hairstons (Sammy, Jerry, Johnny, Jerry Jr., Scott)
The Schofield/Werths (Ducky Schofield, Dick Schofield, and Jayson Werth).
Jayson Werth’s mother was an Olympian I think. So his grandfather and great grandfather played in the majors? I didn’t know that.
Edit: Dick Schofield was his uncle. Just looked it up. Interesting family though.
Great work, coop! I forgot all about the Hairstons even though I once wrote about ‘em:
Wish I could take credit. I asked. Google provided.
The Red Sox offense is ridiculous.
Although it’s not three generations in the same sense as the five families listed by coop, Felipe Alou had quite the family connections. He had two brothers (Matty and Jesus) and two sons who were big leaguers (Moises Alou and Luis Rojas), along with a nephew (Mel Rojas). That’s a lot of talent. Felipe himself was a true star. Over a seven year run in the mid-sixties, he averaged 5 bWAR a season, which includes the first three seasons of the Atlanta Braves, and he accumalated 42 WAR for his long career. Matty was the NL batting champ in 1966 and hit over .330 four straight seasons. Jesus was not a star, but he did play for fifteen years in the big leagues. More of y’all remember Moises Alou, who had a similar career to his dad, with 39.9 WAR over his career. Felipe’s son Luis Rojas did not play in the big leagues, but as manager of the 2021 Mets he helped the Braves win their 4th straight division title.
Felipe also ties together three comments threads of the last couple of days: the “family generations” thread, the “guys were were excellent hitters and managers” thread (Torre, Baker, Alou, Piniella), and the “managers who played with Henry Aaron” thread (Torre, Alou, Baker, Gaston, LaRussa).
Good morning to Charlie Morton!
@7 it was 4:45 AM out in LA when you wrote that so hopefully Morton was still getting his beauty rest!
This entire post season feels like playing with house money and I love it! I hope the team keeps playing loose and grinding away at the Dodgers’ pitching staff. Buehler pitched 6 1/3 innings (3 ER, 99 pitches) in Game 1 of the NLDS 10/8 and 4 1/3 innings (1 ER, 71 pitches, pulled with 2 runners on) in Game 4 of the NLDS 10/12. I have to assume that with 7 days between starts and a pretty tired ‘pen, Roberts is going to let Buehler pitch into the 7th inning if he’s rolling. He’s a very good pitcher, but I don’t know if he’s prepared for the CHAOS MAGIC of the 2021 Braves.
(I should mention – Morton is a legit stud starter too. He can shut down anyone when he’s on.)
Go Braves!
This entire post season feels like playing with house money and I love it!
100% agreed. My expectations were so low I wanted to sell in July. Everything from here has been a welcomed surprise, and I’ll enjoy the run as long as it lasts.
Looking back so far, the move of the season was trading for Joc Pederson. That was such a decisive move right after the Acuna injury to at least keep the players and fans from feeling like the season was completely hopeless and lost. And then he just kept adding and adding and adding. Love it.
With Buehler on the mound, on paper the Dodgers are winning. Go Braves!
@6 I didn’t see that thread. I hope Johnny Oates wasn’t forgotten. He was the best manager who wasn’t Davy Johnson.
Eddie Mathews played with Hank Aaron and managed as well, of course.
When I was a kid, there used to be a joke: “What’s the shortest book? Great Jewish Baseball Players.” It wasn’t funny, but a lot of jokes back then weren’t funny. It was a simpler time.
I’ve been doing a little research, and Joc Pederson is by far the best Jewish hitter the Braves have ever had. As a little pregame trivia, name all five players in Atlanta Braves history who aren’t supposed to play on Yom Kippur. (Extra points if you come up with someone I’ve missed.)
It looks like the Red Sox are going to the World Series unless Houston figures out how to stop their hitting. If Atlanta makes it to the big show and Boston wins out, I think the best scenario is for Boston to win in 5. The longer Boston rests, the greater chance their bats have of cooling off.
Mike Mordecai is the most recent, I think. Sid Gordon was the best left fielder this team ever had.
That joke was in the movie Airplane! and I admit, I laughed at the time.
I remember being utterly astonished when I learned that Mike Mordecai isn’t Jewish. But off the top of my head, without recourse to bb-ref… Fried and Pederson on the current team. We had Ryan Lavarnway for a bit, didn’t we? Wally Berger. And… shoot, I’m drawing a blank! Who’d I miss?
#12
I got Max Fried & Jason Marquis.
And Rowdy Tellez — who knew?
#8
Let’s knock ’em to their knees today… and let’s certainly avoid an 11-spot in the 1st inning.
@12 and 15–if I’m not mistaken, Jason Marquis lights the menorah (as Adam Sandler might say).
Are Fried and Pederson the best pair of Jewish teammates since Ken Holtzman and Mike Epstein?
Back in July, I wrote an enormous comment about how Atlanta should sell and to try to go all in for 2023. Not 2022. 2023. Really glad I didn’t hit post on that one.
We’ve been really fortunate in this series but I’m not apologizing. 2-0 is 2-0 and we’ve had some awful breaks over the years.
I was doing Atlanta Braves only, so Berger and Gordon are out.
So Fried, Pederson, Lavarnway, Marquis… and two more…. (Sorry, I forgot one when I wrote the question above.) Neither is famous for his career as an Atlanta Brave, but both finished their careers in the City Too Busy To Hate Jews. (Ah, Sam Massell…)
We’ve got tickets for the entire fam for Saturday’s game back in ATL.
As special as that’d be, especially for my kids – – I’d take the Braves finishing off the Dodgers in LA too – – even better!
Let’s steal a couple over the next 3.
How do you know if a player is Jewish or not? I didn’t even know about Max…..I guess I don’t think about stuff like that.
Anyway, should be a good game tonight. Looking forward to Big Game Charlie!! Hoping some home cooking sets Freddie straight. Hope Buehler falters.
Hello everyone. Have I missed anything 🤔🤣
Buehler’s Off Day?
Give him heck, Braves.
Aruba is one happy island. There are no off days in paradise. Hammerhead, boys.
This moment…by an acting manager during a dumpster fire of a season. I didn’t know if they were ever going to win with this man, or if he’d even remain the manager beyond that year, but after the malaise of the Fredi years, the intensity was welcome. So fun to see the Braves on this stage again.
@21: The same way you know if Ozzie’s from Curacao or not… You read it somewhere. As to not paying attention, there are only two sorts of people who pay attention to this sort of thing: antiSemites and my family. (I hasten to add those are two very different groups! Also, this reminds of a very long, very funny story I once heard from Sidney Zion. I will tell it someday when we aren’t all on tenterhooks waiting for the damn game to start already… maybe some day in February.)
To make your question more precise CindyJ, the missing Hebrews are Norm Miller, who played for the Braves in 1973-4 after 8 years in Houston, and, everybody’s surprise Jew, Denny McLain. This sort of thing is where it gets tricky, CindyJ, because while his mother was Jewish, he was raised Catholic. But when your roster is as short as ours, you take anyone you can plausibly lay claim to.
@24
That’s really cool. And to think that if Coppygate never happened, Snit would have been gone. It’s fun to play out different scenarios where Coppy stayed and hired someone else, or AA took over and insisted on getting his own guys. All of them, though, can’t play out the fact that they won the division in 2018 and Snit has earned his job every single year since he’s been here. Would we have had an even better manager? Would Bud Black (rumored) have been better? Not sure.
And to think that Hart clearly thought Snitker was stupid, enough so to undress him in the clubhouse. I’d cheer for a team with Snit in the dugout over a team with Hart in the front office. You can make the case that Hart is the worst non-player in my lifetime of watching the Braves. At least with Coppy’s, his sins were paying kids too much of the rich people’s money. And long texts. Ok, that part is unforgivable.
25 – Speaking of Jewish mothers, Pache wears the Star of David in honor of his mother, though he is a practicing Christian.
That’s wonderful!
But, JonathanF, it’s not ONLY your family, except in the way that Billy Crystal says in Mr. Saturday Night: “Sometimes it feels like we all have the same relative.”
New thread.
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2021/10/19/braves-giants-game-3-thread/
@25 I meant no offense.
Now did we really expect the bullpen to do it again? Of course we didn’t. Dodgers will win tomorrow. Than we are down to best of three. The Braves are fortunate to be up 2-1. Winning two one run games in the playoffs is unheard of. In a single series that is.