Back-to-back HRs put Braves on cusp of title
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
ATLANTA -- Exactly three months from the day they summoned Jorge Soler in those frantic final moments before the Trade Deadline, the Braves summoned the power-hitting outfielder to pinch-hit in a tied Game 4 of the World Series on Saturday night. What followed was a magnificent missile, a smoked line drive that sent Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez crashing violently into the wall and the Truist Park crowd into hysterics.
Soler’s seventh-inning solo shot off Cristian Javier immediately followed the same from Dansby Swanson , and those back-to-back blasts are how the Braves not only put together the first lead change of this Fall Classic, but also put themselves on the cusp of their first World Series title since 1995. With a 3-2 victory that required late-inning lumber and six pitchers, the Braves took a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Series to give themselves a chance to clinch at what is sure to be a charged Battery on Sunday night.
At the beginning of the year, I wasn't part of this team,” Soler said through an interpreter. “The organization traded for me. Obviously, I'm grateful to be here. It truly means a lot to be able to be here with this group of guys.”
That group of guys is the 47th team to take a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven World Series -- an advantage that 40 of the previous 46 (87%) turned into a title.
“There's still a lot left to be written,” said Swanson, “and I think that we need to go out and continue to compete to put ourselves in that position to give this city what it's been longing for.”
Swanson and Soler wrote quite a script in the seventh. In a stunning span of just five pitches in Game 4, they turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead.
First, Swanson swatted Javier’s 95.1 mph four-seamer over the heart of the plate into the right-field seats in front of the Chop House. Then, Soler, whose in-season arrival made him one of the four acquired outfielders who rescued the Braves in the wake of Ronald Acuña Jr. 's awful season-ending knee injury, punched a misplaced 80.6 mph slider to left.
“He threw me a couple sliders,” Soler said of Javier, “and on that second slider, I felt like I got a pretty good look at it. On that third slider, I felt like he partially hung it a little bit, and so I was able to make that connection and get the home run.”
What it lacked in height, the 107 mph blast off Soler’s bat made up for in speed and significance. It barely cleared the 6-foot wall that guards the Astros’ bullpen, and Alvarez, a primary designated hitter in a ballpark that -- for now, anyway -- does not allow one, was unable to get a glove on it.
“I thought that Alvarez had a shot,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “That would have been a fantastic play.”
Swanson and Soler were, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, the first Nos. 8 and 9 hitters to hit back-to-back homers in the World Series.
Their timing was impeccable.
Prior to that point, the Astros had been winning/surviving a pitchers’ duel, untraditional though it may have been. Houston had taken an early lead with the help of a short and shaky outing from Dylan Lee , a 27-year-old Braves rookie making his first career start. The Astros had gotten some vintage effectiveness from potential Hall of Famer Zack Greinke , who had seemingly been running on fumes. And Jose Altuve 's 23rd career postseason home run -- a solo shot off Kyle Wright in the fourth -- had put them in good position to even the Series at two wins apiece.
Lee’s assignment had been a surprising one . He was released by the Marlins in March and made his big league debut for the Braves on Oct. 1. And though he didn’t allow a ball out of the infield, he did show some jitters in walking Michael Brantley and Alvarez to load the bases after Altuve’s leadoff single to short.
So one night after pulling his starter five innings into a no-hitter, Braves manager Brian Snitker pulled Lee one out into a one-hitter. Wright was summoned into a stressful situation with the Astros in the heart of their order. While Carlos Correa was able to make it a 1-0 game by grounding out to third and scoring Altuve, that fielder’s-choice RBI was all the Astros could muster.
Wright struck out Kyle Tucker to escape the inning with minimal damage, and he went on to give the Braves 4 2/3 innings in which his only big mistake was Altuve’s homer, which went a Statcast-projected 434 feet to dead center. (The Truist Park organist who had teased the 5-foot-6 Altuve with “It’s a Small World” seconds earlier didn’t fare very well in that at-bat, either.)
That gave Houston a 2-0 lead. But it could have been much worse for the Braves, under the circumstances.
“Kyle is the reason we won the game , how he kept that thing in check and allowed us to stay around in that game,” Snitker said. “That was huge.”
Greinke’s performance, meanwhile, was all guts, grunts and guile. It was only four scoreless innings, but, in the context of a postseason that has largely revolved around relievers and Greinke’s very limited role of late, it was everything the Astros could have possibly hoped for.
“We were going to take him as far as he could, and we took him to that point,” Baker said. “He was dealing, and he threw up some key double plays. He was vintage Greinke.”
While Greinke’s 90.2 mph four-seam average was above his season average (88.9), it obviously wasn’t lighting up the radar gun. But he induced whiffs on 40% of all swings against him and limited hard contact. And he made the early runs scored by the Astros stand up.
The Braves, though, chipped away in the sixth. Baker turned to trade acquisition Phil Maton after Brooks Raley pitched himself into a two-on, one-out jam. Maton struck out Ozzie Albies on some high cheese, but Austin Riley continued his star-building October with a sharp RBI single to left. Alvarez’s debatable decision to throw home on the play allowed the Braves to get runners at second and third with two outs. But after intentionally walking Joc Pederson to load the bases, Maton struck out Travis d'Arnaud to preserve the 2-1 edge.
Alas, it didn’t last in the game-changing seventh.
Following those seismic swats from Swanson and Soler, the Braves got perfect eighth and ninth innings from Luke Jackson and Will Smith and a circus catch from left fielder Eddie Rosario on an eighth-inning Altuve fly ball to the warning track.
With that, they perpetuated their reputation for perseverance and put themselves on the precipice.
“I'm happy for our city that they can go through this, experience this,” Snitker said. “What a great time of year. For the city, the Braves Country, to experience all this, for our players to experience it, it's a win-win situation.”
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Last night was one of those games where you could just feel a Braves rally.
Did this guy bring them luck?:
Out of Las Vegas:
Scott Ball emerged victorious in the 2021 World Series of Poker $5,000 no-limit hold’em six-max event, defeating a field of 578 entries to capture his first gold bracelet and the top prize of $562,667. This was by far the largest live tournament score of the 35-year-old’s tournament career. Ball was reportedly one of the key factors in establishing the Twitch Poker channel, making a big push to have the game added to the popular live-streaming platform. He went on to head the channel for several years.
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I just hope to see the commissioner hand over that trophy tonight to the Braves in Atlanta. Perfect karma.
Either way, the commissioner loses.
True. Five home playoff games plus three in the World Series more than makes up for the lost all star game, And if it doesn’t work out, a team from a great red state wins the series just Ike happened in the NHL and NFL.
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Why were Dumbfuck and Melania out in the nosebleed section of the stadium?
Maybe to avoid the mistake Abraham Lincoln made at Ford's Theatre.
"The Native American community in that region is wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that’s kind of the end of the story. In that market, we’re taking into account the Native American community," Manfred said Tuesday.
Richard Sneed, the principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, told the Associated Press he would like more of the focus on other things plaguing Native Americans, including poverty, unemployment, child abuse, sexual assaults and suicide.
"I’m not offended by somebody waving their arm at a sports game. I’m just not. If somebody is, that’s their prerogative, it’s their right. They can be offended. ... I don’t know very many — maybe one or two — from my tribe who say, ‘Yeah, I don’t like that.’ But at the end of the day, we’ve got bigger issues to deal with," Sneed said.
More like no one with better seats invited him.
That crowd sure seemed to welcome him.
More like the people love him.
I still don't know about those 80 Million votes, but I can guarantee you that you could never produce them now. Keep your eye on big blue Virginia this coming Tuesday.
I think they were cheering their baseball team.
Trump lost Fulton County Georgia, where Atlanta is located , 72 -26 %
Election Night Reporting (clarityelections.com)
They were guests in someone’s private box section…
melania's box section has never been private to guests with a lot of money...
Well we know what they would have been chanting if #46 had been there. The issue would have been kosher or profane version…
In a way it would’ve been cool to see dementia boy there. I would’ve loved hearing the crowd chant “let’s go brandon” , or straight out “fuck joe biden.”
Maybe to get some progressive liberal's knickers twisted??
C'mon, man, the reaction would have been just the same had he been a luxury box or even the owner's box.
As if some need an excuse to show their hatred of their past President.
John, think for a minute...The Braves draw from all over Georgia...from all the red rural areas as well as blue Atlanta. As a matter of fact there are some neighboring states that don't have a Major League team.
Not true that the native community supports this:
National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp said in a statement on Wednesday that the concern over the Braves mascot and "Tomahawk chop" is more than just a local issue. Sharp noted that the World Series games played in Atlanta this weekend will be viewed by tens of millions of fans both nationally and internationally.
"Meanwhile, the name 'Braves,' the tomahawk adorning the team's uniform, and the 'tomahawk chop' that the team exhorts its fans to perform at home games are meant to depict and caricature not just one tribal community but all Native people, and that is certainly how baseball fans and Native people everywhere interpret them," Sharp said.
"In our discussions with the Atlanta Braves, we have repeatedly and unequivocally made our position clear -- Native people are not mascots, and degrading rituals like the 'tomahawk chop' that dehumanize and harm us have no place in American society," he said.
Leaders from the Atlanta Indigenous Peoples Association said the Braves have not included them in any discussions about the "Tomahawk chop" and that Manfred's statements are not completely true.
Laura Cummings Balgari, co-director of the association, said while the Native community in Atlanta wants to support the Braves, many feel offended by the team's use of the Tomahawk symbol and chopping gesture. Balgari said she would welcome a conversation with the Braves and a chance to educate the team and fans about the Tomahawk's significance to their culture.
"We are frequently faced with that misrepresentation or that warrior savage imagery that our ancestors were killed for," Balgari said. "Generally, we are represented as artifacts, people that aren't really real ... but we are very much still a part of our tribal communities. We are living, breathing, evolving people just like any other group of people and we'd like to be recognized as that."
The Cherokee Nation , the largest tribe in the U.S., shared Balgari's sentiment.
A spokeswoman for the tribe said in a statement that face paint, crying war chants and "Tomahawk chop" gestures "mock Native culture as if we are vestiges of the past."
"This does not honor Cherokee traditions, nor do they honor our fellow tribes," the statement said. "The 574 federally recognized Native American tribes are each distinct, sovereign governments with their own unique history, culture and language, and should be respected as such, not as stereotypes or mischaracterizations or derogatory terms."
Richard Sneed, the principal chief of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians oviously disagrees. He's a big part of that community and he says it's a non-issue. I think it's a big issue for white progressives.
If anyone ever deserved it, it's Joe
A click on the blue date above will get the sights and sounds of that wonderful chop and our great President.
I don’t care about the Braves, but I would root for 9 demons if they were playing the Astros. Hell, I’d root for the Giants (yes, that’s worse than demons) if they were playing the Astros.