Atlanta Braves: Bullpen falters in late innings as Braves fall short in Game 1 of NLDS

Injury Leads to a Scramble

The early exit for Martin led to Luke Jackson coming into the game and promptly allowing a monster home run by Paul Goldschmidt. Jackson would record the next two outs before exiting the game early after allowing two straight singles.

Mark Melancon entered with 2 outs in the 8th to try and clean up the mess. Matt Carpenter hit a high pop up that landed in front of Adam Duvall and that allowed the Cardinals to tie the game.

However, Duvall threw an absolute laser to home plate and Francisco Cervelli tagged out Kolton Wong to keep the game tied at 3 apiece.

Wheels Fall Off

The 9th inning was disastrous for Melancon as he allowed 4 earned runs on 5 hits with 2 walks and a strikeout. The Cardinals would take a huge 7-3 lead on the Atlanta Braves.

However, as they’ve done all season, the Braves fought back in the bottom of the ninth. Billy Hamilton led off the inning with a walk and was driven in on via a Ronald Acuna home run.

Ozzie Albies was called out on a bang-bang play at first base. The ball beat him but it looked like Goldschmidt had possibly come off the bag. Replay couldn’t show with any certainty whether Ozzie was safe or not.

This would be an important play because Freddie Freeman launched a mammoth home run in the next at-bat. If Ozzie had been safe, the Braves would have tied the game 7-7.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and Carlos Martinez would get Josh Donaldson to ground out and strikeout Nick Markakis looking to give St. Louis a 7-6 win over the Braves in Game 1.

Atlanta faces the tough task of beating Jack Flaherty to keep themselves out of a 0-2 hole in the series.

It won’t be an easy task but the offense and Mike Foltynewicz will have to step up if they have any hope of keeping this series close.