Braves Drop Finale Versus Rockies, Losing Postseason Spot

The Atlanta Braves are now tied with the New York Mets for the final NL Wild Card - the margin for error is gone

The Atlanta Braves failed to complete the sweep against the Colorado Rockies, dropping the series finale 3-1 in Truist Park on Thursday night.

Here’s what you need to know about from the contest.

Reynaldo López was SHOVING tonight

The former reliever, moving back to starting after three seasons in various bullpens, wasn’t expected to be this good this late in the year. With previous inning workloads of 66, 65.1, and 57.2 innings across the last three seasons, the expectations of many in Braves Country (and I’m counting myself in there) was that he’d be a solid #3 or #4 starter for the first half before transitioning to the bullpen.

Instead, he threw six innings with eleven strikeouts and no walks in his 23rd start of the season, coming in early September.

That’s baseball, Suzyn.

López is showing no ill effects from either the cumulative innings workload, with his six innings pushing his season total to 127.2, or the three weeks he had off while on the injured list in August for a mild forearm strain. His average fastball velocity tonight was a tenth of an MPH over his season average of 95.5, while his 37% CSW was one of his higher totals of the season.

The outing wasn’t perfect, however - Colorado got two solo homers on (seemingly) the only mistake pitches of the outing by López: a middle-away curveball to Michael Toglia in the 2nd inning and an inside slider to Ezequiel Tovar that was intended to be lower and more outside that it was in the 6th.

Call it fatigue or just bad luck, but the two homers tonight were just the 9th and 10th of the season off of the righthander on what can be argued were his only two mistakes of the evening.

STREAK WATCH: Yep, they did it again. López going six innings with just the two runs allowed extended Atlanta’s franchise record streak of three or less runs allowed by the starters to 24 games.

BONUS STREAK: Atlanta pitching picked up 16 strikeouts tonight, adding up to 45 punched tickets in this three-game series. That’s the highest three-game total in Braves franchise history.

Every time we turn around, this Braves pitching staff seemingly sets some sort of new franchise record. For the longest continuously operating franchise in MLB, one that’s had some of the greatest pitchers to ever do it wear that jersey - Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Bruce Sutter, Phil Niekro, Warren Spahn, and Cy Young himself - that this staff can even have records left to set is, frankly, amazing.

The Braves offense is wasting that pitching staff

I know this lineup has been decimated by injuries. One-third of tonight’s starting lineup was players designated for assignment mid-season by their former teams.

But even with that understanding, this was a pathetic showing by the Braves.

It didn’t look like it would start that way. Facing MLB’s leader in homers allowed (27) in Austin Gomber, Atlanta got three consecutive singles and scored a run in the first inning, forcing Gomber to throw 22 pitches to get out of it.

(Actually a great piece of hitting from Ramón Laureano to go get a curveball down and away and pull it to left field.)

He threw just 70 pitches over the next seven innings, allowing only two hits and no walks while striking out six. Atlanta went just 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranded three baserunners (two of them in scoring position).

The most frustrating thing was: Gomber wasn’t doing anything special. His fastball was between 87 and 92 mph, and behind its 41% usage he evenly mixed three average breaking/offspeed pitches - a changeup, a knuckle curve, and a slider - all at 20% usage. He finished with just 12 whiffs and a slightly above-average 30% CSW, but Atlanta just couldn’t get comfortable off of the righty. The Braves had just eight hard-hit balls (only three over 100 mph) and one extra-base hit, a leadoff double in the 2nd inning by Orlando Arcia. (He advanced to third but the Braves couldn’t get him in.)

It’s not the worst loss of the season - that’s easily getting shut out 1-0 by the Chicago White Sox on June 27th - but it’s right up there.

Soler has to do more

The most consistent and reliable bat for Atlanta this season, designated hitter Marcell Ozuna, can’t do it by himself.

So Atlanta went out and brought slugger Jorge Soler back at the trade deadline, getting him and reliever Luke Jackson from the San Francisco Giants for Tyler Matzek (since released and back with Atlanta) and minor-league infielder Sebin Ceballos.

But Soler’s not been able to carry his weight.

With the exception of his six games against Colorado, where he’s gone 9-24 with 4 homers and 10 RBI, Soler’s just 7-63 with Atlanta with one homer, three RBI, and 25 strikeouts in 27 games (24 starts).

When you combine the lack of offense with Soler’s defensive limitations in right field (ask Chris Sale about that), it’s definitely a suboptimal situation.

The margin for error is gone

The New York Mets were off tonight but were still winners.

With Atlanta’s loss, the two teams are now tied for the final Wild Card spot in the National League. What’s more, Atlanta doesn’t have the tiebreaker over New York - as the two teams are tied with five wins against the other, the second tiebreaker is the intradivisional record. Atlanta is 23-21 in the division, a .523 winning percentage, while the Mets are 22-17, a .564 percentage.

This will not come down to the second tiebreaker, as there’s only three games remaining between the two teams so someone will have an edge on record.

But the two hottest teams of the last fifteen days (entering tonight’s action) are both in the division, with New York 11-3 and Philly 10-4.

The Wild Card lead is gone. The playoffs start now.

What’s next for the Atlanta Braves?

The Braves welcome the Toronto Blue Jays to town for a three-game set over the weekend. Both teams have already confirmed their rotations for the series:

Fri: Max Fried vs Kevin Gausman (old friend alert)
Sat: Spencer Schwellenbach vs José Berrios
Sun: Chris Sale vs Yariel Rodríguez

The first two games are both 7:20 PM ET starts, while the finale is at 1:35 PM ET on Sunday afternoon.