This season has had a lot of bad stuff happen to the Braves, and one specific type of bad stuff is “losing games they should have won.” Last night’s game, well, they had a lead, but they mostly just kinda BABIPed the Cubs to death here and there and the end result wasn’t surprising. Tonight, amid a handful of Braves debuts, was the more surprising-slash-annoying type of loss, where the Braves outplayed their opposition but lost anyway. Oh, and it was a one-run loss, because that’s the sort of thing the Braves are doomed to relive over and over this season.
Joey Wentz pitched super-well in this game, but you’d probably miss it without looking at his peripherals because the Cubs managed a hilarious .600 BABIP against him and the Atlanta defense. Wentz had a stellar 8/1 K/BB ratio in his four innings of work, but ran into problems in the third, where his lone walk, a couple of weak bloops, and a couple of well-hit balls, along with a three-run dinger by Kyle Tucker, gave the Cubs a four-spot. The fourth run scored on a burner to Ha-Seong Kim at short that the Braves’ shortstop acquisition couldn’t corral, so hopefully Kim hasn’t been cursed like the rest of his teammates just by virtue of donning the uniform.
The Braves didn’t do much of anything against Shota Imanaga the first time through, but Ronald Acuña Jr. got the second time through the order started with — what else — a barreled out. The fourth started with Matt Olson’s first triple of the year on a ball that came to a stop under the wall in right; Olson came to score on a wild pitch, and then Ozzie Albies took Imanaga deep to make it a 4-2 game. Marcell Ozuna followed with a single, but the inning foundered thereafter, as Michael Harris II replaced him on first after a forceout and got picked off. Kim then hit a ball hard that his counterpart at short didn’t flub.
After another perfect inning by Wentz, Eli White took Imanaga deep to lead off the fifth to cap the scoring. After that, all that was really left was fun debuts for the Braves. Rolddy Munoz relieved Wentz and got three outs on four pitches thanks to a double play ball in the fifth, and then stuck around for a two-walk, one-strikeout sixth. Hayden Harris worked a 1-2-3 seventh with all the outs coming on balls in play. Kim collected his first Braves hit against Drew Pomeranz in the seventh, but didn’t go anywhere. Caleb Thielbar (once a Brave) and Dylan Dodd traded perfect eighths.
In the ninth, the Braves had a mini-rally as Marcell Ozuna singled with one out, and Kim notched an infield single with two outs and pinch-runner Luke Williams on second after a steal. Unfortunately, because it was an infield single, the game stayed tied, and Eli White hit a sad can of corn on the first pitch he got from Cubs closer Daniel Palencia to end the game.
The Braves had already perfected the “losing a one-run game they should have won” thing during long losing streaks earlier this season, so it’s not surprising it made a comeback here. Stay tuned for whatever fresh-or-reheated hell they concoct for us tomorrow. I don’t really even wanna look up how many games they’ve lost this season where they had two-plus homers and more than the opposition, but it’s probably not that many, meaning they found yet another pseudo-novel way to lose a one-run game tonight.
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