Atlanta Braves comeback falls short in NLDS Game 1 loss to Brewers
Game 1 of the NLDS matchup between the Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers was everything that heart-racing October baseball should be.
Unfortunately for the Atlanta Braves, they came out on the losing end, coming frustratingly close to erasing a 2-0 deficit in the last couple of innings.
The Milwaukee Brewers survived Game 1 by a final score of 2-1, taking a 1-0 series lead leading up to Saturday’s Game 2.
For the Atlanta Braves, it was a game of “almosts”, culminating in an “as close as you can get” 9th inning against the best relief pitcher on the planet, Josh Hader.
Freddie Freeman, representing the tying run, was left stranded 90 feet away from home plate.
Strangely enough, the Braves have been here before against Milwaukee: two of their three regular-season losses to the Brewers also came by one run, with Hader sealing the win both times.
Nevertheless, a strong start by veteran Charlie Morton gave the Atlanta Braves every opportunity to start the series off on a successful note. The 37-year old right-hander was brilliant from the outset.
It wasn’t until the 6th inning that the veteran Morton began to show signs of vulnerability, and it wasn’t until the 7th that Milwaukee delivered its first – and only significant – punch.
Of course, that punch had to be delivered by a hitter named “Rowdy”, and the punch could be better classified as a haymaker.
The two-run shot from Rowdy Tellez gave Milwaukee the 2-0 lead it needed, and that lead would not be relinquished even in the aforementioned white-knuckled 9th inning.
The Braves’ Joc Pederson made sure to remind fans, however, that the calendar has indeed flipped to “Joctober”, with an opposite-field shot in the top of the 8th inning that drew Atlanta within one run of the opponent – a very familiar place for them this year.
Here’s three takeaways for the Atlanta Braves following the Game 1 loss in the NLDS.
1. Let’s talk about that top of the 1st inning for the Atlanta Braves.
We heard all week about the dominance of Milwaukee starter Corbin Burnes, the league’s ERA champion and a Cy Young finalist.
So when Jorge Soler and Freddie Freeman coupled together two terrific, lengthy at-bats resulting in walks – putting the Braves in a shockingly advantageous situation versus Milwaukee’s best – it felt big.
Real big.
First and third with no one out, and Burnes, in his first inning of the first postseason game on his home field, cornered – literally and figuratively.
At that point, his pitch count had already surpassed 20, and he was having difficulty finding strikes.
Enter Ozzie Albies, the Atlanta Braves’ dynamite – but often overly aggressive – second baseman.
Behind Albies, two more of the Braves’ biggest run producers.
You could not have scripted the beginning of a game any better.
Albies, facing a 1-0 count after two batters ahead of him had reached via walk, grounded a cutter right to Tellez, who made an impact with his bat, as well as his glove.
Soler broke for home, and was gunned down at the plate on the Tellez throw. Double play.
From first-and-third with no outs to runner at second with two outs, all on one pitch.
If it felt as though there was a collective groan amongst Braves Nation following the double play, there was.
You hate to say a game is “over” that early, but Atlanta’s inability to cash in on a supremely favorable situation felt like it would come back to haunt them, and it did.
The lack of scoring in the first was only magnified by the game’s eventual 2-1 final score.
October baseball is always about “what ifs”, and there certainly is reason to discuss how the game could’ve gone down a drastically different path had Corbin Burnes not been let off the hook in the first.
2. Charlie Morton was brilliant most of the way, giving the Atlanta Braves a fighting chance.
The right-hander’s fastball was perhaps the most electric it has been all season.
A rested Morton was regularly sitting at 97 mph on the fastball, even touching 98 a few times.
Coupled with Charlie’s trademark “Uncle Charlie” curveball, he had a 2-pitch rhythm that had the Milwaukee hitters looking silly over the first half of the game.
Morton dazzled the Brewers’ lineup to the tune of nine strikeouts over the game’s first five innings, allowing just two baserunners – on soft singles – over that stretch.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the 6th that Morton began to show the first sign of cracking, issuing a leadoff walk that – while inconsequential in the 6th – would prove to be an ominous sign of a loss of command in the 7th.
The game-changing bottom of the 7th started with Morton plunking a batter, then serving up the decisive bomb to Tellez.
The final line for Charlie Morton reads 6 innings pitched, 2 earned runs, 1 walk, and 9 strikeouts.
And – unfortunately – an extremely costly hit-batsman, followed by a home run.
However, you can’t win with 0 – which is the run support Charlie had received up until that point in the momentum-swinging 7th.
Charlie Morton’s day must at least give Atlanta Braves fans some confidence that he’s still got the “stuff” to be a real weapon in October.
Make no mistake, he looked good – real good – for the Braves on the mound in a postseason game, at least until things spiraled fairly quickly.
3. The Atlanta Braves came within striking distance – and then some – of extending NLDS Game 1 into the bottom of the 9th.
With the Milwaukee right-handed pitchers dominating for much of the afternoon, it felt as though it would take a thump from a left-handed bat to spark things for the Atlanta Braves.
Enter Joc Pederson, the bleached-haired, pearl necklace-wearing showman who seemingly thrives on this sort of stage.
The calendar, after all, has flipped to “Joctober”.
Pederson lived up to his namesake, blasting a pinch-hit, 8th inning homer to trim the lead to 2-1, providing the Braves with a chance against Hader.
Freddie Freeman’s leadoff walk in the 9th, followed by a sharp single from Austin Riley two batters later, once again put the Atlanta Braves in a “multiple runners on with less than two outs” scenario, just as they had squandered in the 1st inning.
But the Braves went out with a whimper instead of a bang, following a dribbler in front of the plate and a routine groundout to second, leaving Freeman stranded at third.
However, there is something to be said in a postseason series about how you finish a game and how that can sometimes translate into the next game.
Maybe some late-game confidence was built against this stingy Brewers’ pitching staff.
Atlanta didn’t go down without a fight, and they made Hader labor like he is not accustomed to, forcing the Brewers’ closer to hurl 20 high-stress pitches.
Thinking optimistically, maybe that exposure will prove to be beneficial down the road in this series, though down 1-0 they now have the pressure squarely on their shoulders.
The Atlanta Braves can hope that their comeback effort, while not enough to flip the script in Game 1, might mean for a more vulnerable Brewers’ pitching staff in Game 2.