The champagne was sprayed and cigars were smoked on Thursday night at Truist Park after the Atlanta Braves clinched a spot in the National League Division Series, taking down the rival Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2, in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series.

The champagne was sprayed and cigars were smoked on Thursday night after the Atlanta Braves clinched a spot in the National League Division Series, taking down the rival Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2, in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series.


Catcher Drake Baldwin said, “It’s fun to celebrate beating a really good Phillies team. It says a lot about the guys on this team, so we’re gonna celebrate it. It feels really good.”

The Braves took a giant exhale in the first inning when Michael Harris II crushed a three-run home run off of Phillies starter Aaron Nola to give Atlanta an immediate 3-0 lead.

“Honestly, that pitch isn’t what I wanted, but it’s what I got and I just did what I could with it. He’s always been a guy that gives me a lot of trouble. He doesn’t want to give me pitches over the plate to hit, so when you got in a situation like that with runners on, I just had to take advantage of it,” Harris explained.

Ozzie Albies added a two-run shot off of Philadelphia’s ace Zack Wheeler in the fourth inning. The third home run of the night was a Matt Olson solo shot in the bottom of the seventh.

Ray Kerr made the start for the Braves and pitched 3.1 innings, surrendering just one hit and one walk, while striking out a pair of batters.

“The fact that he has that trust in me, I’m gonna keep showing [Walt Weiss]—keep putting your trust in me,” Kerr explained.

Grant Holmes came out of the bullpen and pitched two innings, allowing two hits, one run and one walk. Robert Suarez, Didier Fuentes and Dylan Dodd patched together 2.1 innings, combining for two allowed hits and one run.

2024 National League Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale closed out the game for Atlanta, going 1.1 innings, giving up just one hit, while punching out three.

“Literally as soon as I stepped in my office this afternoon, I put my backpack down. I looked up and he was sitting in the chair across my desk. And he looked at me and said ‘I feel amazing,’” manager Walt Weiss said.

Sale, whose heroics came on one day of rest, added, “To get to this point—this is what we live for. To be able to come to a winner-take-all game against a team like that and do what we did tonight is special.”

Weiss explained, “When we fell on tough times and we heard the noise, ‘we’re choking’ and ‘we’re giving it away.’ These guys just took off again, man.”

Atlanta will travel to Los Angeles this weekend to face the back-to-back world champion Dodgers in the best-of-five National League Division Series. First pitch at Chavez Ravine on Saturday for Game 1 is at 4 p.m. ET.