The Atlanta Braves season ended in historically bad fashion Wednesday as the St. Louis Cardinals defeated them in 5 games to advance to the NLCS.
This was a train wreck that started for the Atlanta Braves even before the first pitch was thrown when it was learned that the “Tomahawk Chop” would at worst be altered.
Then the first inning happened…
The Cardinals put a 10 spot on the board. No that is not a typo. 10 runs before the Braves ever grabbed a bat. The most ever in a 1st inning in a playoff game. It also tied for the most runs ever scored in any playoff game.
Everything you could ever dream of going against the Atlanta Braves happened…and then some. Freddie Freeman, who’s struggles with the bat this series was well documented, committed an error that essentially let the floodgates open. From there it only went downhill.
Mike Foltynewicz only went 1/3rd of an inning and the pitching staff as a whole allowed 5 walks in the first inning.
Even when the pitchers got outs, they didn’t. Dropped third strikes led to runs and after it was all said and done, the Atlanta Braves were already planning tee times for this weekend.
Two last notes on that first inning.
- The half inning was 26 minutes long!
- The Cardinals made a defensive substitution before the bottom of the first. Something I have never seen done.
The bottom line was it was quite possibly the worst half inning of baseball ever, and most certainly the worst inning of Atlanta Braves history.
Obviously there were 8 more innings of baseball on this night, and some other things that happened.
As if the 10 wasn’t bad enough, the Cardinals added 1 more in the second, and 2 more in the third. They finally loosen up the reigns after that.
To switch it up for a second and place an emphasis on the rest of the playoffs, I was surprised the Cardinals held onto Jack Flaherty for so long as he went 6 innings in this affair. Perhaps they are planning on him going in game 3 and a possible game 7 in the NLCS?
The Braves got their lone run in the 4th off the bat of Josh Donaldson as he hammered a ball out of the park. Naturally, there was no umbrella celebration this time.
Just when you thought both teams were cruising to the finish, tempers flared up a bit after Flaherty hit Ronald Acuna right in the back with a pitch. This might have been retaliation for the Braves hitting Marcell Ozuna earlier in the game. However, I think both were circumstance and neither was intentional.
Sure, there are going to be questions as to why the Atlanta Braves didn’t opt to use Mike Soroka earlier in the series and perhaps had him available for this game, but no one saw this implosion coming from the whole team.
Perhaps we should have all expected something like this when Sam Holbrook was not only an umpire in this series, but would have the left field line in this game 5.
One last note on not only this game, but this series. The Atlanta Braves have no one to blame but themselves as they had opportunity after opportunity.
In my opinion, this series got thrown out of whack when Chris Martin had to exit game 1 with an injury. If the Braves had a full and healthy pitching staff, things might have worked out differently.
The Atlanta Braves season ends just like that. In extremely disappointing fashion and with yet another loss in the first round of the playoffs. I wish I could close this out with something other than…there is always next year.