ATLANTA -- Though it included a portion of an eight-game winning streak, this hasn’t been a fun month for the Braves. But the results of the past few weeks and months will be trumped by what transpires during a season-ending 31-game stretch that began with a 4-3 win over the Dodgers on Tuesday night at Truist Park.
“The later you get in the season, the more you want to be peaking anyway,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said. “That’s a really good team over there, somebody that’s going to be in the mix. So, that’s a really good win.”
The past two wins have reminded the baseball world that despite recent woes, the Braves still have a lot of fight in them. Atlanta had lost five of its first six games of a trip that included stops in Minneapolis, Chicago and Milwaukee before beating the NL-leading Brewers in Williamsport, Pa., on Sunday night.
While Milwaukee owns the NL’s best record, the kings of the NL are still the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers. But thanks to Ozzie Albies’ two-out, eighth-inning single and Raisel Iglesias’ impressive ninth-inning escape, the Braves have now won three of four against Los Angeles this year.
“I never doubt the room in there,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “It's a good room. The guys play to win. They played for the team. It’s just a good group. The mentality, the makeup of the room is really good.”
That makeup would have been further tested had Iglesias faltered after Shohei Ohtani opened the ninth with a triple. Instead, the Braves’ closer escaped and allowed his teammates to feel good about a satisfying win.
The Braves entered this series opener having averaged 2.9 runs per game while losing 10 of the 16 games that had been played since they won an eighth straight game on Aug. 6. They halted their offensive woes by tallying four singles before Tyler Glasnow recorded his second out in a three-run first.
Replays showed it would have been a four-run first had Atlanta been able to challenge home-plate umpire Edwin Jimenez’s ruling that Mike Yastrzemski fouled a 3-1 pitch that went to the screen with Michael Harris II on third base. Weiss argued quickly before being told it wasn’t reviewable.
But the ruling didn’t come back to hurt the Braves. Olson doubled off Tanner Scott to begin the eighth and then advanced to third base when Mauricio Dubón showed bunt and then pulled the bat back to hit a grounder to the right side. Albies scored Olson with a game-winning single to left.
“Everybody's aware of how the last kind of week and a half has gone,” Braves starting pitcher Bryce Elder said. “It hasn’t been very pretty. After kind of scuffling a little bit, I think everybody was aware we had to play good baseball, and I thought we did.”
Elder looked like a playoff-caliber starter as he limited the Dodgers to eight hits (all singles) and three runs over six innings. Just three of the singles surrendered were hard-hit (exit velocity of 95 mph or higher). He ended his 98-pitch effort by stranding a pair of runners with two consecutive strikeouts.
With the win, the Braves improved to 4 1/2 games in front of the second-place Phillies in the National League East race. They also pulled within three games of the Dodgers in the battle to secure the NL’s second-best record and avoid having to play in the Wild Card round.
After finishing this three-game series against the Dodgers, the Braves will play their next six games against teams (Rockies, Giants and Nationals) not in playoff contention. But the following 13 games will be played against the Phillies (seven games), Rays (three) and Cubs (three), who are all in good position to reach the playoffs.
As Tuesday showed, the Braves can be at their best when playing the best.
“When you look over there and see the starters that [the Dodgers] are rolling out and the lineup that they’ve got, everybody perks up a little bit, and says, ‘Here we go,’” Elder said.