I’d say “stop me if you heard this one before,” but you can’t stop me, because I have a recap to write. The Braves fell behind early, and didn’t hit any homers, losing a close-ish game on the margins to the Twins. When you don’t hit homers, you need BABIP, and when you don’t get BABIP, chances are you’re going to lose. That’s pretty much what happened on Monday night at Target Field.
This game was a weird one in many ways. After a 45-minute rain delay, the Braves grinded Bailey Ober for 26 pitches, but ultimately came up short. Both Drake Baldwin and Michael Harris II singled, but Mauricio Dubon fouled out weakly to right on the eighth pitch he saw from Ober. Then, the Twins pulled off some high-wire only-in-baseball garbage, aided by Martin Perez’ inability to keep the ball in the zone. Look, I’ll just post the snip from the Baseball Savant gamefeed:
Basically, a soft double, two walks, a bloop double that basically kissed the chalk that no one was able to run down, a very soft bloop, and then a perfectly-placed slow roller. Put that together, and it’s four runs. Yeah, Perez shouldn’t be walking two guys in an inning if he’s not going to strike anyone out, but… help us out a bit, BABIP gods, eh?
They would not. The funny thing is, the Twins didn’t manage to get much of anything going the rest of the way, but neither did the Braves. Perez basically cruised until the fourth, when the Twins managed two hard liners, but Ryan Jeffers had a weak flyout to strand them. Perez completed five innings with a 3/2 K/BB ratio — no walks after those two to the second and third batters he faced. Victor Mederos had a 1-2-3 sixth, and then Tyler Kinley came on (white flag?), hit a batter, walked another, and gave way to Ray Kerr, making his first MLB appearance since June 15, 2024. Kerr threw literally one pitch, a down-the-middle sinker to Kody Clemens, which turned into a groundout. For the eighth, the Braves left Kerr in the game, and somehow, the Twins loaded the bases with none out again (somehow equals a hit-by-pitch, a single, and a bunt that Kerr threw too high for Ozzie Albies to flag down at first and still touch the base). But, despite me looking very askance at the Braves for deciding to throw Kerr in for an up-down in a close game while still recovering from Tommy John Surgery, he somehow got out of it with no runs scoring, thanks to two pop-outs and a groundout.
That was the pitching slate for Atlanta; the hitting slate was a lot more frustrating. The Braves made Ober throw a ton of pitches, a la the first inning, but to little avail the first two times through the order. After that first inning, they got a leadoff single in the second and a two-out walk in the third, but didn’t do anything with either. They finally broke through in the fifth: Austin Riley singled to start the frame, and Drake Baldwin pulled a double down the right-field line. Ronald Acuña Jr. got a fastball down the pipe on 2-1 at a sad 85.6 mph and yanked it down the left-field line to make it a 4-2 game. The Twins then immediately yanked Ober for lefty Taylor Rogers, and the Braves obliged with two outs in the air.
Atlanta went down in order twice against Travis Adams in the sixth and seventh. In the eighth, Olson hit a dribbler down the right-field line against Jeff Hoffman for a double. Harris followed with a very hard grounder, but Clemens made a great diving play and on-target throw. Hoffman walked Dubon and Albies could have played hero… but hit a weak fly ball the other way for the third out.
In the ninth, it looked like the Braves might make a game of it against Yoendrys Gomez, who walked Mike Yastrzemski to start the inning. But, Riley bounced out, and pinch-hitter Dominic Smith tried to slap a ball on the outside edge the other way and hit it too high, making it an easy play for the left fielder. So, it was all up to Baldwin and he hit the only barrel of the game… except he hit it to left field, where again, it went for a relatively easy out. Basically, the Braves had seven opposite-field fly balls go for outs in this game, four of which would’ve probably changed the game to a substantial degree had they found grass. Maybe pull the ball next time, guys.
Anyway, the loss is as costly in the standings as it could be at this point, which is to say not very much. The Phillies won a one-run game against the Marlins, so the division lead is down to 6.5. The Dodgers beat up on the Rockies, so they take over the second seed. I always just think to myself, “Well, that’s why they have this cushion.” Maybe the BABIP gods will be kinder next time, or maybe the Braves can just hit some homers so they don’t need to sweat another team out-BABIPing them by .100 or whatever.