Today's Three Things: Marcell Ozuna bails out offense with walkoff in 10th inning

The Atlanta Braves offense couldn't bring any runs in tonight until the very end of the game

The Atlanta Braves took down the Cincinnati Reds 2-1 in ten innings on Tuesday night in Truist Park.

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The seventh inning.

Chris Sale did his job in the top half - coming back out with 99 pitches, Sale gave up a leadoff double off the very top of the left field wall and then buckled down after that. He got a ground out from catcher Jose Trevino and struck out Blake Dunn swinging to get the inning to two outs, but that’s all he could do. After a four-pitch walk, he was lifted for Pierce Johnson, who immediately got a strikeout of Matt McLain to end the threat.

Atlanta promptly started their own rally in the bottom half of the inning, but the inability to get consecutive base hits and some bad baserunning doomed the Braves. After a leadoff walk by Ozzie Albies, he advanced to third base on a Sean Murphy single. But with no outs, Ozzie was (for some reason) running on contact and Eli White’s chopper to third was fielded easily, trapping Ozzie in a short rundown for the first out of the inning.

The Braves went quietly after that, with Michael Harris lining out to centerfield despite crushing the ball (110.1 mph) and Alex Verdugo hitting a missile to first base (107.4 mph), but one that was scooped by Spencer Steer for the final out of the inning.

ICYMI: No team hits loud outs like the Atlanta Braves

To add insult to injury, the Reds would go on to score their first run of the series in the top of the 8th, taking a 1-0 lead. While Atlanta scored one to tie it in the 9th and got the walk-off in the 10th, it arguably shouldn’t have ever gotten to extra innings.

Today’s Player of the Game

Chris Sale.

The tall lefty, who hasn’t had the start to the season he was expecting, was back on his Cy Young stuff tonight.

Sale scattered five hits across 6.2 scoreless innings, striking out ten and issuing only two walks. He threw a season-high 112 pitches, but was removed with two outs in the seventh after walking TJ Friedl on four straight pitches.

The veteran was back on his “spam the slider” thing, throwing 62 of them in his 112 pitches and getting 9 whiffs and an absurd 18 called strikes on the breaker for a 44% CSW. He allowed just four hard-hit balls and only one extra-base hit, a double to open the seventh inning.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Offensive futility.

The Braves went just 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position in the walk-off win, extending their poor performance in that metric to 3-for-39 in the last six games. They stranded eleven on base tonight.

If three consecutive wins can be a streak, then five consecutive games of four runs or less can also be a streak…but not the kind you want.

It’s not just the lack of timely hitting, either - in the bottom of the 7th, the rally was partially killed by either a dumb baserunning error on the part of Ozzie Albies or a coach's decision to run the contact play.

I don’t know what the fix is, but the offense just has to be better. That’s all there is to it.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are looking to take the series in Wednesday’s game three, but it’s a tall task: Grant Holmes (2-2, 4.24) takes on one of the NL’s best pitchers in Hunter Greene (4-2, 2.53) at 7:15 PM ET.