In the end, the Atlanta Braves World Series-clinching 7-0 victory Tuesday turned on only three decision points. All three came within the first three innings.
Decision point: Escape clause. After Astros starter Luis Garcia set down the Braves without incident in the top of the first inning, Braves ace Max Fried took the mound hoping to re-establish his dominance.
A 14-game winner with a 3.04 regular season ERA, Fried had been bad in his two most recent post-season appearances. The Dodgers roughed him up for five runs in fewer than five innings in the fifth game of the NLCS, then the Astros lit him up for six runs in five innings of the second game of the World Series.
To make matters less comfortable, Jose Altuve reached on an infield single, then Fried failed to find first base on Freddie Freeman’s toss of Michael Brantley’s ground ball…and Brantley stepped on Fried’s ankle in the process.
The result: Two on, nobody out, and a roaring Minute Maid Park crowd awaiting the heart of the Astros order.
The stats say that in such situations, the team at bat can expect to score 1.55 runs. The Astros got zip. Fried fanned Carlos Correa, got Yordan Alvarez to ground to second baseman Ozzie Albies, then stared down AL batting champion Yuli Gurriel on three straight bottom-of-the-zone fastballs.
Decision point: More Soler power. Once Fried escaped that first inning dilemma, the game briefly appeared to be settling in to a pitcher’s battle. Fried and Luis Garcia both rolled through the second inning with minimum effort.
Ozzie Albies led off the third shooting a two-strike single through Houston’s shift into right field, but that seemed inconsequential when Travis d’Arnaud and Dansby Swanson both flied out. Then after Garcia walked Eddie Rosario on five pitches, Astros manager Dusty Baker got nervous. Garcia, after all, was working on just three days rest.
Baker sent pitching coach Brent Strom to the mound for a calm-down session while warming left-hander Brooks Raley in the bullpen. In the series’ first game, a similar Strom visit with Framber Valdez went bad when the next hitter, Adam Duvall, slammed a two-run home run. Perhaps Strom should politely decline next time Baker wants him to go to the mound: Soler worked the count full, fouled off two pitches, then lifted a cutter onto the train tracks for a 460-foot three-run home run.
It was his third home run of the series, and by far the most decisive. It effectively clinched both the title for Atlanta and the World Series MVP trophy for Soler.
Decision point: Nothing doing. Having acquired a 3-0 lead, Fried came out for the bottom of the third needing to do what Braves pitchers had not done two nights earlier. On Sunday, gifted a 4-0 first inning lead, the Braves watched Houston score twice in the second and twice more in the third, rolling to a 9-5 victory.
Few things are as important as a shutdown inning, and that’s what Fried delivered. The proposition might have been problematic when Martin Maldonado led off the bottom of the third with a line single. But after Jose Altuve flied out to Duvall, Brantley hit a weak first-pitch one-hopper right back to Fried, who turned it into an inning-ending 1-6-3 double play.
There remained four more Braves runs to be scored and 18 Astros outs to be recorded. But for practical purposes, the ballgame was over when Dansby Swanson’s throw to Freeman beat Brantley for the final out of that third inning. The Astros only got three more hits, and never advanced a runner beyond first base.