Bryce Elder has been crushed this season by everyone, but especially by the Phillies. Ranger Suarez has been great this season, including dominating the Braves twice, and was coming off the best two-start stretch of his career. The result, by which I mean a Braves loss, seemed pretty likely. The way the loss unfolded, though? Well, that’s baseball, baby.
In brief, the Braves got a bunch of baserunners but didn’t really do anything with them, yet another wistful dirge to be sung at what are hopeful the funeral rites of an offensive approach that attempts to turn a bunch of guys mostly adept at hitting the ball hard in the air somewhere into a bunch of chain-moving OBP wielders or whatever. Far from dominating, Suarez managed just a 2/1 K/BB ratio and exited after five innings of work. By xFIP, it was his third-worst start of the season. However, the Braves didn’t actually strike the ball with oomph, and more problematically (but also perhaps somewhat expectedly for someone that has watched them hit this season), they didn’t actually chain enough non-outs together most of the time. Here’s how they squandered their opportunities:
After this, the Philadelphia bullpen took over, and though the Braves got a couple of two-out baserunners in the seventh and a one-out single in the eighth, that was it. Jhoan Duran blew away both Jurickson Profar and Olson to end the game.
Okay, so, the Braves being unsuited to win a game without homers is nothing new, and though Suarez didn’t eat them alive, they didn’t manage many runs in this one. So, what was unexpected? Well, the fact that Bryce Elder… didn’t implode. Or explode. Or any kind of -plode. To be clear, Elder wasn’t exactly stellar — a 4.65 xFIP and a 3/2 K/BB ratio is no sign of a changed man. But, for once, the HR/FB didn’t crotch-punch him, and in fact, the only barrel for either team on the night ended up being a barreled out for Elder’s benefit to the warning track in center.
Elder breezed through innings early; a leadoff walk in the fourth, a Bryce Harper bunt single, and a Brandon Marsh single scored Philadelphia’s first run. After that, the only other Philadelphia batters to reach came as a result of a Nacho Alvarez Jr. error, and another walk. Elder had a 1-2-3 seventh, facing 27 batters in all.
So then, the Braves lost on a homer, right? Nope. They just lost on the same stuff they did to Suarez, just sequenced better. With one out in the eighth, Dylan Lee got Kyle Schwarber to commit to swinging on a perfectly-placed slider on the low-and-outside corner, and the result was a weak bloop single to center. Lee then got Harper to swing at a slider nowhere near the zone, and he pulled it on the ground between two infielders. Hit a bit more in either direction and it’s an inning-ending double play, instead it put runners on the corners. Out came Pierce Johnson, and a generic fly ball to right scored the final run of the game. You already know how it ended.
Matt Olson had three hits in this one, but two were bloops and one was a groundball single. Oh, but for another Olson homer at Citizens Bank Park. Ozzie Albies, Nick Allen, and Acuña all reached base multiple times as well, but to little avail.
The series continues with Chris Sale’s return tomorrow.