A Walk in the Park: Six Braves Pitchers and Michael Harris II's Two-Out Hits Edge the Dodgers 3-2 to Even the NLDS
By Jess Henderson ·
Michael Harris II was down 0-2 to Kris Bubic with two outs and nobody on in the fifth inning at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, the score tied 1-1. He fouled off a sweeper, then a 94.7 mph fastball, and when Bubic went back to the sweeper, Harris lined it toward the left-field corner. Teoscar Hernández could not track it down and, per MLB.com's Sonja Chen, misplayed it off the wall. Harris ended up on third. During Mauricio Dubón's four-pitch walk, Bubic threw a wild pitch, and Harris scored the run that put Atlanta ahead for good. The Braves beat the Dodgers 3-2 in Game 2 of the National League Division Series, and the series goes to Atlanta tied 1-1.
They did it with a third straight bullpen game. Chris Sale got the last four outs of the Wild Card clincher on Thursday, so Atlanta held him for Game 3. "At the end of the day, we want full-strength Chris Sale," Walt Weiss said before the game, per ESPN's Alden Gonzalez. "I know him at 80% is really good, but that's what it came down to."
Ray Kerr opened again, three days after his 3 1/3 scoreless innings against the Phillies. He struck out Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith in a 1-2-3 first, then struck out Hernández and Andy Pages in the second around Freddie Freeman's single. Miguel Rojas doubled to open the third and Tommy Edman popped a bunt to Austin Riley. Kerr walked Mookie Betts on four pitches, which MLB.com's Mark Bowman described as pitching around him to get the lefty-on-lefty matchup with Ohtani. Ohtani popped up on the seventh pitch. Grant Holmes needed one pitch to get Smith on a grounder to third. Kerr's line: 2 2/3 innings, two hits, no runs, four strikeouts, 42 pitches.
Blake Snell had a harder time finding the zone. Ronald Acuña Jr. singled in the first and stole second during Matt Olson's four-pitch walk. Ozzie Albies walked to load the bases, and after Harris popped out, Dubón hit a 1-2 fastball toward shortstop. Betts dove to stop it, and his throw to first was too late, per the Associated Press. Acuña scored. Sean Murphy struck out on three straight curveballs to leave the bases loaded, and Snell was at 27 pitches. He lasted 3 2/3 innings with five walks and five strikeouts, 47 strikes in 90 pitches. Chen noted he had thrown five innings in the previous two and a half weeks after leaving his Sept. 16 start with left groin tightness.
Freeman tied it leading off the fourth, hitting a 2-2 slider from Holmes 375 feet to right, his first extra-base hit since Sept. 2, per Chen. Kyle Tucker singled and Pages walked with one out, and Dylan Lee came in to strike out pinch-hitter Max Muncy on a full-count foul tip and get Edman to pop up the first pitch he saw. Lee got the win.
Lee walked Betts to open the fifth (Betts won an ABS challenge on ball four) and Ohtani singled. Robert Suarez, making his fourth appearance since his right elbow began bothering him in late June, according to Bowman, got Smith to fly out on a full-count fastball at 100.1 mph, got Freeman on a fly to left and struck out Hernández on a 101.4 mph fastball. That began a run of 14 straight Dodgers retired.
Didier Fuentes, a 21-year-old rookie, took the next 11 of them. After Game 1, Weiss said he would not use Fuentes from behind on Saturday. "It would have been 4 out of 5," he said, per Battery Power, meaning four days out of five. Rested, Fuentes struck out Ohtani on a full-count slider in the seventh. In the eighth, Smith took a called third strike and challenged it, and the call stood. Freeman took a 2-2 splitter that was called a ball until Drake Baldwin challenged it, and the automated system made it strike three.
Baldwin went 0-for-2 and walked three times, once intentionally. Both of his challenges turned balls into strikes: that one to Freeman and the first pitch to Tucker in the ninth. I like catchers for this reason. Most of what they do only shows up if you are watching them. "I think we have a lot of confidence in our bullpen," Baldwin said on the field afterward, per Bowman. "They've been really good for us all year, a lot of leverage guys all throughout it."
Harris added the third run in the seventh. Olson singled off Edgardo Henriquez, who touched 103 mph, and Albies struck out. With two outs and a full count, Harris fouled off a 101.6 mph fastball and lined a cutter 364 feet to right, and Olson came all the way around from first. That was Harris's third hit of the night, a home run short of the cycle.
Atlanta had a chance for more in the eighth. Roki Sasaki walked Rowdy Tellez and hit Riley with a full-count slider, after Riley won a challenge that made the count 3-0. Mike Yastrzemski bunted the runners over, Baldwin was walked intentionally, and Acuña hit a 106.8 mph grounder at Betts for a 6-4-3 double play. The Braves left 11 on base. The Dodgers went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
I had the late innings on the radio during an after-dinner walk that was supposed to be one loop. Fuentes kept getting outs, so it became three. In the ninth he got Tucker and Pages on three pitches. Muncy worked a full count, fouled off a fastball and hit the next one, at 98.7 mph, 397 feet to right-center for his second homer in two games. Raisel Iglesias came in to face pinch-hitter Josue De Paula, who popped his third pitch up in foul territory, and Riley caught it. Atlanta used six pitchers. The Dodgers used seven.
Up Next
Game 3 is Tuesday at 5 p.m. Central at Truist Park, with Sale starting against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Sale threw a shutout against the Dodgers in Atlanta on Aug. 27, a 1-0 win with Yamamoto on the other side. Bowman reported that Sale and Tyler Mahle will start the two games in Atlanta, which puts Mahle in Game 4 on Wednesday at 5 p.m. Central.
A Game 5, if needed, would be Friday at 7 p.m. Central in Los Angeles. In the current 2-2-1 Division Series format, teams that split the first two games on the road have taken the series 30 of 49 times, according to MLB.com.