MLB Playoffs: Deliverance in Georgia

The Braves overcome a harrowing chain of events to claim a 6-5 MLB playoffs victory over the Dodgers Sunday night in Atlanta
The Atlanta Braves went into survival mode Sunday night at SunTrust Parkin the MLB playoffs. They survived 9 bases on balls, 6 pitching changes, an error that permitted a run to score and an umpire who – momentarily at least – took one run off the board.

In the end, the NL East champions survived with a 6-5 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers that extends the teams’ best-of-five National League Division Series to a fourth game.

The 6 runs were the first Atlanta had scored in the series. Dodger pitchers Hyun-Jin Ryu and Clayton Kershaw – with minimal bullpen assistance — shut them out Thursday and Friday.

For a few moments Sunday, the Braves appeared on their way to an easy victory in their post-season home debut. They turned two outside assists – one from Dodger starter Walker Buehler and one from plate umpire Gary Cederstrom – into a five-run second inning.

Buehler’s contribution was his own wildness. He walked three batters – among them weak-hitting Braves starter Sean Newcomb on four straight pitches with the bases full — to force in the game’s first run.

The next batter, Ronald Acuna Jr., took three more pitches nowhere near the strike zone, and thought he had earned yet another walk when Buehler fired the fourth pitch several inches above the top of the zone. But Cederstrom invoked the automatic 3-0 strike, denying what would have been a second run-producing base on balls. If Buehler thought himself reprieved he was wrong. Instead of walking to first and forcing just one run home,  Acuna hit Buehler’s 3-1 pitch into the left field seats for a grand slam.

The Braves, however, squandered the gifts. In the bottom half of the second, Newcomb walked leadoff hitter Kiki Hernandez, and moments later issued a two-out walk to Chris Taylor. That sufficiently unnerved Braves manager Brian Snitker to replace Newcomb with Kevin Gausman. But Justin Turner touched Gausman for a run-producing line drive hit to left, and when Acuna misplayed the ball Taylor also came around to score.

Gausman settled down and held the Dodgers scoreless until the fifth, when Taylor’s one-out home run scored Yasmani Grandal, who had walked, ahead of him. One out later, Max Muncy tied the game with a home run off Max Fried.

In the bottom of the sixth, Freddie Freeman put Atlanta back in front 6-5 with a long blast that almost landed in the Chop House above the right field seats.

The Braves’ series-long search for a pitcher who could check the Dodger offense wound through Newcomb, Gausman, Max Fried, and Touki Touissaint before alighting on Chad Sobotka. He pitched an uneventful seventh,  A.J. Minter worked through a hit, a wild pitch and a walk to nurse the narrow lead through the eighth.

In the ninth – narrow escapes being the night’s theme — Arodys Vizcaino allowed a leadoff single off the right field wall by Joc Pederson , and walked Justin Turner. But he struck out Muncy and Manny Machado and then, having wild pitched the runners to second and third, also fanned Brian Dozier to finally, almost inexplicably, nail down the victory.

The Braves and Dodgers continue their MLB playoffs series tomorrow at 4:30 PM Eastern with Game 4.