If not for the events of the eighth inning, tonight’s game would have been a frustrating loss: once again, our starter got rocked (Bryce Elder‘s second straight start of exactly 3 2/3 innings); Dansby Swanson came back to Atlanta for the first time in a new uniform, got a standing ovation, then stole a base and scored his team’s second unanswered run of the game; and our offense was held scoreless through the first five innings by an as-advertised Justin Steele.
Well, at least he was as advertised through five. In the sixth inning, the Braves went to work on him, and after a leadoff homer by Kevin Pillar, followed by a double, a walk, and an RBI single, his night was done, further blemished by the RBI double yielded by the man who relieved him. That crooked number cut the lead in half to 6-3.
The next inning, after a leadoff walk by Sean Murphy, Ronald Acuña poked one just 344 feet over the right field wall; he’s hit ’em 150 feet further than that, but they all look the same in the box score. That cut the lead to 6-5, and that was the last of the Braves’ earned runs.
The Braves benefited, however, from a number of unsolicited gifts from the Cubbies. The first came in the fourth, as Bryce Elder was finally removed in the fourth inning after giving up his seventh hit and fifth walk of the night. But Jackson Stephens came in and didn’t even need to retire a man to get out of the inning, as Sean Murphy caught rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong *trying* to come home on a delayed double steal; Murphy faked the throw to second and then got Crow-Armstrong in a rundown. I imagine his manager won’t let him quickly forget the error of his ways, as he made the third out of the inning at third base.
(Dansby Swanson had successfully stolen second base in the second inning with a man on third, clearly trying to bait the Braves into chasing him into a rundown; instead they let him take the base.)
Then came the eighth inning, which could haunt the poor Cubbies in their desperate hopes to clinch a playoff spot. Drew Smyly was pitching, and he started out in vintage fashion: leadoff walk, wild pitch, strikeout, wild pitch, walk, strikeout, stolen base. At that point, the Braves had the tying run on third, the go-ahead run on second, and Sean Murphy lifted a fly ball to right-center field, as right fielder Seiya Suzuki and converged with center fielder Cody Bellinger – who started the game at first and just shifted to center at the beginning of the inning.
Suzuki called him off, raised his glove to catch it, and then… he whiffed. The ball dropped right behind him for a backbreaking two-run error. Suzuki had a single and a two-run triple earlier in the game, so he wasn’t a complete goat; while his misplay cost his team the game, his triple (the Cubs’ only XBH of the evening) had previously accounted for his team’s margin.
There’s a reason it’s a cliche to say you’d rather win ugly than lose pretty. Of course you would. A win’s a win, and as the Dodgers split their doubleheader today, the magic number for the best record in the league stands at 1. (The Orioles beat the no-help Natspos 1-0 tonight, so the magic number for best record in baseball is at 3.) Absolutely none of the questions surrounding this team were answered, and absolutely none of the critics were silenced, and who the hell cares? We won!
As the Insane Clown Posse sagely observed:
I’ve seen miracles in every way
And I see miracles every day
We’ve got 101 wins! Ain’t it great?
JC’d as they say
This might have to be the blueprint for playoff wins: Our offense makes up for our pitching deficiencies and scores 6-7 runs / game. The good thing is I think they can.
Oh and Suzuki, woof!
You didn’t mention that Dansby struck out with the tying run on second to end the game. It was a classic Dansby strikeout on a sweeper low and away that he missed by a foot. Dansby has had a fine 4.6 WAR season, but he has a 102 OPS+, and that final at-bat brought back a lot of memories. The extra 2.6 WAR is very important, but the numbers are amazingly close. And, lucky or not, the WPA difference almost exactly compensates for the defensive WAR difference. https://stathead.com/tiny/g7QvJ
Well, that was certainly a gift. Thanks, Cubbies.
A little more on Brooks Robinson, who was my first favorite player as a little kid.
After the 1966 season in which the Orioles won the WS, he did a USO tour of Vietnam with several other MLB stars/notables — Aaron, Killebrew, Musial, Torre, announcer Mel Allen. My dad, who was deployed there, met that bunch and made a reel-to-reel tape recording with Brooks Robinson (and Mel Allen) offering best wishes & saying hello to 3-year-old me back in Georgia. I played it & replayed it for years. I still have it.
(Many years later, I ran into Boog Powell at Camden Yards, as I was getting plate of Boog’s BBQ, & told him the story. He said, “I remember that… because I was supposed to go on that tour, too!”)
Anyway, as soon as I could grasp the idea of baseball, Brooks was my fave and, as luck would have it, the ’70 WS (which turned into his showcase — go watch the highlights) was the first World Series I remember sitting down & watching. I was hooked, surely because I felt personally connected to him.
So, for me, the baseball thing… it all started with Brooks Robinson. Thanks, Brooks & RIP.
Pic from the USO tour: https://tinyurl.com/USO-66
Thank you for sharing Ububba. That’s very special and unique. What an incredible family heirloom.
It is great for baseball that the Orioles are having such a genuinely magical season. They’re just absolutely loaded with fun young players. When I went to Camden Yards a month ago, I had an absolute blast – the stadium was packed and it was just a perfect place to be with an entire city full of people who have had an unforgettable summer.
The thing is, they didn’t look anything like juggernauts to me. They’ve got a deep lineup and no weaknesses, but especially with the injury to Bautista, their lineup doesn’t scare you much. They were playing the Rockies and they won by a single run; they looked like an above-average team, but not a 100-win team. Clearly, they have generally played better than the team I saw that night, but they certainly seem to have benefited from a season’s worth of luck. It’ll be interesting to see how they compete in the playoffs – will they continue to win 60% of their games?
Man, when Pierce Johnson’s curveball is on point, it looks virtually unhittable. Opposing hitters have managed just a .265 xwOBA against it this year and sometimes look downright silly trying to hit it (like Morel and Suzuki last night).
It looks like all Pierce needed was to get away from the hitter-friendly confines of Coors Field. His underlying metrics always showed better inputs than his ERA suggested, but those metrics have only improved since joining the Braves, with his walk rate and groundball rate being considerably better:
2023 with COL (39 IP):
6.00 ERA, 4.54 FIP, 3.99 xFIP, 27.9 GB%, 5.77 BB/9
2023 with ATL (22.2 IP):
0.79 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 2.31 xFIP, 55.8 GB%, 1.99 BB/9
I’ve seen the O’s twice this year in The Bronx & they waxed the Yanks both times, including a 14-1 rout. They got my attention early.
And yeah, Bautista was a difference-maker. He’ll be missed.
Still, would love to be able to take the Acela down to B’more next month for an O’s/Braves Fall Classic.
Tomorrow’s SP for the Braves is TBD and Hurston Waldrep will be on regular rest, so…
Elder’s line was bad, but OTOH, maybe it was bad ju-ju. If Arcia gets it out of his glove, it’s a DP. Even then, it wasn’t hit sharply. Likewise, the dribbler down the 3B line
and even the base hit to center were soft.
I’m worried but hopeful. He’ll almost certainly pitch Game 3 of the division series.
I almost gave up last night. It was volunteer day for Florida Trail maintenance; I was tired.
For me, the issue is command: he’s facing a whole lot of traffic because he’s throwing his slop around the strike zone but not throwing enough strikes to punish hitters who have figured out that they can work deep counts by just spitting on a lot of his pitches.
thank you Alex,
The magic number for world series is combination of 2, Braves wins and Orioles losses. So, if Braves go at least 2 and 3, that is in the bag.
I think Ryan may be on something about Hurston Waldrep. If anybody goes on the IL, they are, like Charlie Morton, out for the division series.
Speaking of Charlie, I think his problem must be bad. Having one dead roster space when your last magic number is around 5 with 9 to play means that there is NO WAY they thought Charlie could pitch effectively by Game 3, which is now still 2 weeks out. If there was even a 50 per cent chance, then they would have tried to play short a player.
I absolutely hate the new rules about September callups. I think it leads to more injuries for all teams. After a long season like this, there should be at least 4 extra players on the roster. For teams out of contention, giving some younger players a look before the end of the year is also helpful.