It was the worst of times. It was the best of times.
In the midst of a worst-case scenario season, the Atlanta Braves are finding some brightness. But it took one of sloppiest games I’ve seen in a while.
The action started in the top of the second. After Marcell Ozuna struck out to leadoff the inning, Michael Harris “extended his hitting streak” by popping a ball up in the infield, but no one could get under it, letting it fall to the ground. Ozzie Albies hit a nifty tapper (my wife calls these “dorkers”) to the left side of the infield to put two on. Sean Murphy followed with a walk to load the bases before Nacho Alvarez hit into a fielder’s voice to score a run.
Erick Fedde followed by walking the bases loaded, but he escaped unscathed. An inning later, he didn’t have as much luck. Steven Kwan led off with a single, which was followed by a Daniel Schneeman (the broadcast said it translates to “snowman”) double before Jurickson Profar dropped a fly ball, allowing a run to score. Bo Naylor followed with a double to make it 2-1, so it wouldn’t have mattered much. But it was a fun contrast with this diving catch from an inning earlier and another one later.
The Guardians extended the lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the fourth. Nolan Jones bunted for a single before Kwan singled, and then The Snowman tripled in both runners.
The slop returned the next half inning. Nick Allen singled to leadoff the inning before the next two batters got out. Ronald Acuña walked, and in the midst of the at-bat where Ozuna walked, Allen mysteriously tried to throw back to second and threw it into center field, allowing Allen to third and Acuña (who I think might have been stealing) to second. Harris then hit a routine groundball to second, but Angel Martinez made a poor throw that Kyle Manzardo couldn’t handle. Ozzie Albies followed with a single to bring the score to 4-3.
After that, the bullpens mostly held both teams in check. Fedde only made it 4 innings, and that was … enough of that. Logan Allen was better, but he only made it 4.2 innings due to running up his pitch count and Martinez’s aforementioned error. The relievers were better with two exceptions. Nick Enright gave up Profar’s home run.
And Pierce Johnson decided to make things interesting in the bottom of the eighth. He walked Jones and Martinez to start the inning before Steven Kwan decided to be an idiot. Attempting a sacrifice bunt, he popped it up into foul territory for out number one. I’ll just never understand making a good hitter bunt after the reliever walked two guys, but I’m not a major league coach so what do I know. Schneeman followed with a groundout. The Braves decided to have nothing to do with Jose Ramirez (fair enough) in order to get Manzardo to hit a fairly deep fly ball to end the threat.
Raisel Iglesias came in for the ninth. Naylor singled before Brayan Rocchio struck out. Gabriel Arias hit a fly ball to left where Profar made his second diving catch of the game, and Nolan Jones struck out to end it.
Atlanta has a season-high five-game winning streak that they should be able to extend as they had back home to gave the Chicago White Sox in a three-game set starting tomorrow.