A day that started out with a lot of buzz and excitement for the Atlanta Braves ended in agony as the St. Louis Cardinals forced a game 5 with a win in extra innings.
For the second time in this series, the Atlanta Braves entered the eighth inning with a lead but couldn’t hold on.
Yadier Molina was the hero for the Cardinals with the game-tying hit in the eighth and the game-winning RBI in the 10th.
The St. Louis Cardinals got on the board first with a couple of solo home runs in the bottom of the first.
In the third inning the Braves would cut the lead in half when an Ozzie Albies sacrifice fly scored Dansby Swanson.
But the Cardinals would get that run back an inning later with another Marcell Ozuna home run.
Swanson would get things going for the Atlanta Braves again in the fifth inning with a one-out double. He scored on a hard-hit ball to third by Adam Duvall that was later changed to an error.
And then Albies gave the Braves the lead with a two-run shot to right field.
But the Cardinals tied it up with a couple of broken bat bloops in the eighth, something they’ve been doing all series so frustratingly.
Julio Teheran was forced to enter the game in extra innings and gave up a leadoff double to Kolten Wong who came around to score the winning run to force a game 5.
On the pitching side, it was another game where Dallas Keuchel wasn’t bad, but when he made a mistake the Cardinals made him pay.
He would end up allowing just 4 hits over 3.1 innings and 1 walk, but three of those hits were solo home runs.
On three days rest, Brian Snitker had a quick trigger for Keuchel — too quick in my opinion — and brought in Luke Jackson to get out of a fourth-inning jam.
Sean Newcomb came on in the sixth and had a very good inning and probably would have come back out for the seventh had his spot not come up in the top of the seventh.
It was a big moment in the game because the Atlanta Braves had the bases loaded with two outs when Newcomb’s spot came up. Snitker decided to pinch-hit with Adeiny HechavarrÃa who just missed hitting a grand slam.
But Josh Tomlin come on and had a very quick 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the seventh putting things back on track for Shane Greene and Mark Melancon.
However, Greene was a bit unlucky giving up those broken bat hits that allowed the Cardinals to tie it up.
But make no mistake, this game is on the offense.
The Atlanta Braves offense had plenty of chances to add to their lead and put the game away but couldn’t come up with another big hit after Ozzie’s home run. They left the bases loaded in both the sixth and seventh innings, and then got a leadoff double in the ninth but Ozzie, Freeman, and Donaldson couldn’t bring him home.
Freddie is now 0-for-12 since that ninth-inning home run in game 1 and looked awful on Monday.
Atlanta finished the game 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, something they’ve been terrible at all series. They are now just 4-for-34 (.118) with RISP in this series, and their 3-5 hitters in the lineup have been terrible.
Now we go back to Atlanta for game 5 where we’ll get a rematch of game 2 between Jack Flaherty and Mike Foltynewicz.