No sense in burying the lede here. The Atlanta Braves, and Chipper Jones, are headed back to the playoffs.
Freddie Freeman's walk off home run against Mike Dunn to dead center field clinched a playoff berth for the Braves, their second in the past seven years.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, Freeman is just the second player in history to clinch a playoff berth by hitting a walkoff home run with his team trailing. The other? Some guy named Bobby Thompson for the 1951 Giants. That's pretty impressive company.
Kris Medlen allowed three runs, but struck out eight as the Braves won for the 22nd consecutive time when Medlen starts on the mound.
Donovan Solano got things going in the top of the second with a solo home run to left field that made it a 1-0 game. The Braves responded right back in the bottom of the inning against Nathan Eovaldi.
Chipper walked to start the bottom of the frame, and Freeman singled to put runners on first and second for Dan Uggla. Uggla singled to left, and Chipper ran through a stop sign on the way home to tie the game at one.
Things stayed that way until the sixth, when Jason Heyward tripled to center and scored on a sacrifice fly from Chipper to make it 2-1.
Solano struck again against Medlen in the seventh, crushing his second home run of the game (and season) with Greg Dobbs on base to give Miami a 3-2 lead.
Eric O'Flaherty and Craig Kimbrel pitched one scoreless inning apiece, and Freeman took care of the rest. With the Nationals' loss tonight, the division lead is down to four.
Time to celebrate!
Note:
The reason the post is so late getting up is that we were waiting on photos from tonight. They still haven't been put up, so we'll adjust it when they do.