Sometimes, a sequential recounting of events makes sense for a recap. This is one of those times.
Spencer Schwellenbach took the hill on Monday night in the series opener against the Cardinals looking to bounce back from one of the worst starts of his young career. He pretty much succeeded in that endeavor, keeping the game close enough for the Braves to battle back and make it a laugher late, only for Raisel Iglesias to then nearly give the game away — but all’s Schwell that ends Schwell given that the Braves came away with a 7-6 win, their fourth in a row.
Schwellenbach cruised early, striking out two and allowing just a weak flare single in the first. He was less precise in the second, and that in combination with some sloppy Braves play gave the Cardinals a two-spot. With two outs, Nolan “Stormin’” Gorman barreled a double to right-center. Pedro Pages got a down-the-pipe fastball on 2-2 and lined it the other way, but it was hit too close to right fielder Jarred Kelenic to allow Gorman to score. However, as Gorman initially rounded third base, Matt Olson cut the throw and fired wildly to third for some reason, overshooting Austin Riley and letting Gorman trot home, while Pages moved to third. Victor Scott II then hit a slow bouncer to short that turned into an infield single and allowed Pages to score.
That, though, was almost all the Cardinals could muster against Schwellenbach. For whatever reason, they wasted an out by having the amazingly-on-fire Brendan Donovan bunt a leadoff single over in the third to no avail. The Cardinals went down in order in the fourth, and had a couple of hard liners that went for outs to center in the fifth. We should all be used to it by now, but I’m gonna note it anyway: the Braves let Schwellenbach keep pitching to the order a third time in the sixth, and it bit them a bit. Nolan Arenado started things with a double, and later in the inning, Gorman hooked a curveball hard into right to push a third run across. Schwellenbach recovered to not only get the next two guys, but then retire the top of the order for a fourth time in the seventh, but at that point, the Braves temporarily trailed.
Schwellenbach was largely brilliant, with seven frames of 5/0 K/BB ball. The defense was very good in cutting down some of the harder contact against him (hi, Michael Harris II, we appreciate you), though Olson’s catastrophic brain fart also hurt him in the short run. The fact that Schwellenbach was able to not only get through the order an entire third time, but then stifle the Cardinals sending batters 28 through 30 against him is a credit to how awesome he is.
Meanwhile, Erick Fedde was decidedly not awesome, but the Braves weren’t lighting him on fire just the same. In particular, this seemed like it could’ve been a disaster of a game for Fedde, given that he was dealing with an incredibly tight zone from home plate umpire Mark Carlson. By my count, the Cardinals had nine pitches in the zone called balls, while the Braves had five — and of those, one for each side was just blatantly not even borderline. Still, Fedde did what he’s done this season: walk guys, not really strike guys out, and have his defense take care of things from there, without anything getting out of hand.
The Braves got two walks in the first, but Ozzie Albies weakly grounded out on the first pitch he saw (a down the middle cutter…) to end that rally. In the second, Harris notched a leadoff single and then Sean Murphy lined a ball back at Fedde that caught him flush on the leg, but Fedde stayed in and persevered, ending the inning with no damage except that suffered by his body. In the third, though, the Braves finally made Fedde pay, as Austin Riley obliterated an inside, not-a-strike sinker after a leadoff walk for a two-run, game-tying homer. Marcell Ozuna followed with a single, but a first-pitch double play ball from Olson meant the game would stay tied for a while yet. Jarred Kelenic hit into a double play in the fourth, and Riley had a barreled out to end the fifth. In the sixth, now trailing by a run, the Braves failed to do anything with an Ozuna leadoff single — Ozuna making an out against Fedde in the first meant that for a brief moment, he had more outs than walks against Fedde, but he then singled in his next two PAs to make that factoid sting a little less.
The Cardinals pulled Fedde after six (3/3 K/BB ratio, a homer allowed), and Kyle Leahy quickly set down the bottom of the Atlanta order in 1-2-3 fashion. But, after a quick inning from Daysbel Hernandez in the top of the eighth, the Braves roared back against Phil Maton, who had been dominant to this point in the season.
Maton struck out Alex Verdugo looking, but the rally started when Austin Riley hit a weak bouncer to short and barely beat out the throw from Donovan (something that required replay review to overturn and put Riley on first). Ozuna followed with a walk, and then Olson atoned-ish by taking a first-pitch down-the-middle cutter and rolling it through the right side for a game-tying single. Maton then walked Albies on four pitches to load the bases, which also prompted: A) a pitching a change for JoJo Romero, and B) St. Louis skipper Ollie Marmol getting tossed from the game for some not-surprising displeasure with the way Carlson was calling (or, well, not calling) strikes in the game. Harris hooked Romero’s first pitch into right field for a softly hit, but definitely deep enough sac fly, which brought up Murphy. The Braves’ catcher had drawn literal (internal, probably? I can’t see under Fedde’s pants, guys) blood with his liner off Fedde earlier, and this time he went for the metaphorical jugular, smashing a first-pitch changeup from Romero into the Atlanta night for a huge three-run homer.
At that point, it seemed like it was going to be an ezpz ggnore victory for the Braves, but… nope. Raisel Iglesias came on and woofed it — almost. After a strikeout of Gorman, Pages blooped a double to left, Scott smashed a double to right, and Lars Nootbaar tried to do the same but happened to hit his liner at Verdugo. That brought up Willson Contreras, who crushed a hanging first-pitch Iglesias slider for a two-run homer that made it a 7-6 game. Iglesias then walked Donovan, and wee woo wee woo, that’s me typing out the sound the impending waaahmbulance makes — but then the Braves got a really welcome but bizarre gift: Arenado swung at Iglesias’ first pitch and barely tapped it fair in front of the plate for the last out of the game. It was less controversial than just anticlimactic — that’s how the game where eight runs scored in the final two frames ends? But yes, indeed, that’s how it ended.
The Braves will now take their four-game winning streak into tomorrow night’s matchup, where they’re going to have to figure out how to replace Spencer Strider’s sudden (re-)disappearance without AJ Smith-Shawver. But hey, wins are great, and they’ll figure out tomorrow, tomorrow.
