For eight innings, the Braves flatlined. St. Louis starter Jack Flaherty had his best start of the year, punching out seven and allowing just three singles (and zero walks) in six frames, flummoxing the Atlanta bats. A pair of defensive miscues granted the Cardinals two runs in the fourth, and a sacrifice fly plated another in the fifth. In the end, none of that mattered, as the Braves collectively reached into their bag of tricks and extracted a stunning victory — giving them the distinction of winning a game in which they trailed by three or more runs in the ninth twice this year, something the rest of baseball has done only once.
Let’s start at the end, or close to it. Down by three in the ninth, the Cardinals turned the ball over to extremely hard thrower Jordan Hicks. That didn’t faze the Braves much, as Freddie Freeman pulled a leadoff double inside the first-base foul line, moved to third on a very wild pitch, and scored as Josh Donaldson lined a single to right. Nick Markakis then drew a walk, putting the tying run on base.
Hicks then engaged in a weird (and short) sequence against Austin Riley, whose defensive miscue (a dropped easy fly) led to a two-base error and eventually the first Cardinals run. Hicks probably figured that Riley knew Hicks was going to try and blow it by him, so he could stun him with his breaking pitch. He got strike one that way, but then went back to the well, and Riley clearly decided to swing at the thing he had already seen from Hicks, rather than the thing he hadn’t . The result was a liner into left-center that scored Donaldson easily, and allowed Markakis to make it third base as Riley moved up to second on the throw.
That was it for Hicks, as the left-hand-hitting Brian McCann was due up for the Braves, and St. Louis skipper Mike Shildt summoned lefty hurler Andrew Miller from his bullpen. The Braves did not swap McCann for the lefty-mashing Tyler Flowers, and that worked out momentarily for the Cardinals, as Miller struck out McCann for the first out of the inning. But then, Shildt left Miller in the game against a righty-hitting Ozzie Albies, a move made particularly puzzling because Miller would later be pulled for a righty reliever anyway. In any case, Albies gave Miller a very protracted ten-pitch battle, which finally ended when he served a slider into right, allowing Markakis to score the third, tying run. Albies rounded the first base bag and took off for second, becoming easy pickings in a rundown as the throw from the outfield was cut off. While you could argue that he did so to try to get the go-ahead run to score, Riley seemingly failed to get a good read and jump with the crack of the bat and had no real chance to score, even as Albies darted and dodged the Redbird fielders. That was it for Miller, and new reliever John Brebbia issued a walk to pinch-hitter Charlie Culberson, which incidentally was his first walk of the year. Brebbia then struck out Ronald Acuña Jr. on a very questionable called strike by Hunter Wendelstedt that luckily did not come back to haunt the Braves. (Haunter Wendelstedt?)
Jacob Webb came out for the bottom of the ninth and re-defined the word “cruised,” as he retired the top of the St. Louis order on seven pitches, with the highest hit probability of the three balls in play he induced being eight percent. The Cardinals would deploy their own Webb, Tyler, in the top of the tenth, after Brebbia retired Dansby Swanson to lead off the frame; their Webb clarified the concept of “bullpen meltdown.”
The first batter faced by Webb the Red was Freddie Freeman, who reached on a slow roller into the shift. Josh Donaldson then drew a walk, and Nick Markakis skied a ball to center that allowed Freeman to tag up and move to third. The Cardinals then opted to enforce the lefty-lefty matchup with Brian McCann by walking Austin Riley intentionally to load the bags, and once again, Brian Snitker did not pull the “hey get the other catcher, the one that kills lefties” trigger. But, it worked out! Webb threw five pitches to McCann, only one of them in the zone, and just like that, the Braves were on the receiving end of a bases-loaded walk and led 4-3 after trailing for most of the game. That was it for their Webb, as Giovanny Gallegos came on and retired Albies on a smashed grounder that was slickly fielded by Kolten Wong at second base.
On came Luke Jackson, and he was mostly on. Marcell Ozuna got a fairly meaty fastball but was a bit late, resulting in a routine flyout to right center. Matt Carpenter struck out swinging. Yadier Molina lined the first pitch he saw up the middle for a single, but it didn’t matter, as Kolten Wong waved ineffectually at three breaking pitches to end the game. Just like that, the Braves won the season series with the Cardinals for a second consecutive year, secured a 5-2 road trip, and gained back the game they had lost to the Phillies last night. They now once again sit 1.5 games out of first place.
There should probably be a note here about Julio Teheran’s performance, but I don’t have the heart for much of it at this point. Teheran kind of pulled what he usually did, but in exaggerated fashion. He pitched five innings of two-hit, three-run ball, in which only one of the runs was technically earned, with a ghastly 1:4 K:BB ratio, and two hit-by-pitches. If you only care about bottom-line run prevention, this wasn’t a terrible performance, but I find it a bit facetious to say that Teheran is good when he benefits from his defense, while also saying that the failings of his defense can’t be held against him. At one point in the game, Teheran issued three consecutive walks, apparently for the first time in his career — that ended up not being an issue as he got a relatively hard-hit grounder right at Freeman to end the frame, but that’s the sort of outing it was. The first two runs he gave up came as a result of Riley’s missed catch error, a line drive RBI single where the batter advanced to second on a poor throw home by Markakis, a steal of third base, and a fielder’s choice where Donaldson threw way wide of McCann at home rather than going for the sure out at first. The third run was aided by a slow roller into the shift that couldn’t be converted into an out, moving a leadoff hit-by-pitch to third where a sacrifice fly would convert it into a run. I doubt this outing changes anyone’s mind about Teheran at this point, but it was another case where he largely left everything up to the defense and ended up not suffering too badly for it.
It was a tough outing for Jack Flaherty, who, as mentioned, was pretty much dominant. Touki Toussaint threw two hitless, scoreless innings with two walks and two strikeouts in relief of Teheran; Josh Tomlin chipped in with a perfect frame of his own.
The Braves are off on Memorial Day (why?), and then return home for a quick two-game set against the Nationals before another off-day (why?).
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