Braves at Orioles series recap: More drama, more wins

Well, if the Padres series wasn’t dramatic enough for you then hopefully you got enough of it during this series between the Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards! Two games went to extra innings and the only game that didn’t went to a walk off. There was barely anything separating these two ballclubs across the three games, so the Braves can certainly count their blessings that they were the ones who came out of. this series on top since it definitely could’ve ended differently!

Let’s take a quick look at just how intense this series was, shall we?

Friday, July 24

Braves 7, Orioles 6

For the first seven innings of this game, it was mostly frustrating for the Braves as Trevor Rogers had himself a very nice start. The only blemish for Rogers came in the fourth inning, which is when Mauricio Dubón scratched a run past him with a sacrifice fly and then Austin Riley bounced one up the middle to tie the game up at 2-2 at that point. That was the only wobble for Rogers and the Braves soon found themselves down 4-2 heading into the late portion of the game.

The eighth inning was when the drama truly began. Rico Garcia entered the game in relief for Trevor Rogers and Drake Baldwin rudely welcomed him to the game by taking a low pitch and sending it flying into the seats in right-center for a game-tying homer. The Orioles had the go-ahead run at third base in the bottom of the eighth but Elieser Hernández kept his nerve and prevented the run from scoring.

It only got nervier from there, as the O’s proceeded to load up the bases in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. Fortunately, a smart intentional walk from Walt Weiss (not the first time we’ll be seeing that during this recap) gave Hernández the opportunity to get Taylor Ward to ground out and send it to extras. The three scoreless innings from Hernández were massive and it was honestly a crying shame that the cold realities of baseball saw him get DFA’d right after the game.

Propelled by the performance, the Braves had a big tenth inning as a result. A hilariously-bad throw to second from Jackson Holliday on a ground ball from Jim Jarvis pushed the Braves out in front and then Matt Olson seemingly broke the game open with a moonshot to right center that made it 7-3 Braves. Smooth sailing from there, right? Wrong! Dylan Lee got the tenth inning and he ended up giving up a sacrifice fly and a two-run dinger to Christian Encarnacion-Strand to bring the O’s within one run. Fortunately, Lee struck out Sam Huff to end the game so yet another late comeback attempt was thwarted by the Braves. Good grief, what a doozy this one was.

Saturday, July 25

Orioles 3, Braves 2

Bryce Elder got the ball to start this one for Atlanta and it was your typical productive Elder start where he did mostly fine for five innings but still couldn’t avoid hanging one for a dinger. This time, Gunnar Henderson was the fortunate recipient of the Elder Hanger and he made no mistake by crushing it out to right-center for a solo shot that put the O’s up 2-0 in the fifth inning. The good news is that Elder was done after the fifth and then Victor Mederos kept Baltimore quiet while he was on the mound for two innings, which gave the Braves the chance to stay in the game.

The Braves slowly but surely got themselves back into the game after they were able to scratch one run past Brandon Young with a productive out from Mauricio Dubón in the seventh inning and then Ozzie Albies bopped one out over the fence in right field for a game-tying solo shot in the eighth. Just like that, the Braves had new life and we were in for another nervy finish during this week’s action.

Unfortunately, the Braves were probably due to roll snake eyes in one of these situations and Saturday night just happened to be the night. An admittedly nervous Didier Fuentes attempted to get through the final two innings but he ended up coming one out short. Jackson Holliday hit a one-out double in the ninth inning and then Dylan Beavers brought him home with an RBI single that walked things off and gave Baltimore the win.

Fuentes wasn’t the only nervous one out there, as Jim Jarvis made a couple of really bad errors with one of those in particular essentially setting the table for Baltimore’s first run of the night. Tough night for the youngsters but that’s baseball for you! Welcome to the Show!

Sunday, July 26

Braves 3, Orioles 2

It sure would’ve been nice for all of the Braves fans out there who wanted to have a nice and relaxing Sunday win to see the Braves acquiesce to those demands and make things easy for the fans. Instead, we got what we got. Despite a strong outing from Reynaldo López and two RBIs from Dominic Smith that gave the Braves a 2-0 lead heading into the eighth inning, drama ensued nonetheless.

Pete Alonso hit a a deep shot to left field for a dinger off of Dylan Lee to make it a 2-1 game and then the ninth inning got nervy because it feels like there have been nothing but nervy ninth innings, lately. Raisel Iglesias walked Christian Encarnacion-Strand to lead off the ninth and as is becoming custom for whenever the leadoff runner gets on against Iggy, you may as well have buckled your seat belts from that point forward.

However, you could make a serious argument that this was not on Iggy, as he induced what looked like a totally manageable grounder from Leody Tavares directly towards Ozzie Albies. Somehow, the ball went through Ozzie’s legs and instead of two outs being on the board, it was runners on the corners with just one out. Jackson Holliday delivered a productive out (via a great play from Ozzie Albies, go figure) to tie the game and Iglesias was able to get the pinch-hitting Jeremiah Jackson to ground out to send the game to extras.

The Braves were quiet in their half of the tenth inning but the Orioles threatened to the point where the Braves were on the very precipice of a painful loss. Danny Young got the ball for the tenth inning and the bases were loaded with nobody out after he walked Dylan Beavers and the Braves gave Pete Alonso the free pass. Baltimore had a 93.6 percent chance of wining the game at this point.

Those chances dropped precipitously to 63.3 percent after Gunnar Henderson lined one directly into Matt Olson’s glove, who then proceeded to beat Pete Alonso to first for an astonishing double play. It was baseball poetry in that all the way back in the first inning, Alonso was the one who completed an unassisted double play. Baseball gives and baseball takes.

A harmless pop fly from Taylor Ward ended the inning and then Austin Riley wasted no time putting the Braves back in front with a hustle double. Atlanta was unable to add any more runs but Tyler Kinley made sure that they didn’t need to. Walt Weiss intentionally loaded the bases in order to force the O’s to use the extremely light-hitting Sam Huff with the game on the line. The decision paid off, as Huff grounded it to Riley who tossed it to Olson to end the game. Phew!

So yeah, Atlanta’s last five wins have been of the one-run variety (and six of the past eight have been one-run wins as well) and those are the types of dramatic, gritty wins that really start to pay dividends in terms of actual wins and the nebulous confidence factory. Staying confident in those types of situations could end up being huge for the Braves once the drama factor ratchets up in October. You could argue that it may not be that big of a deal considering what Baltimore’s record looks like but also the O’s have been playing some really good baseball as of late so it’s pretty impressive to see this Braves team go into Camden Yards and take this series in such dramatic fashion.

Atlanta now heads into a stretch where 13 of their next 17 games will be against divisional foes. They still won’t be seeing the Phillies again until September but for now, they’ll have a chance to really put some serious distance between themselves and the Nationals, Mets and Marlins. 10 of those 13 games will come at home but the first three will take place in New York, where the Braves will be looking to finally take care of business against the Mets. I think we could all do with seeing some nice, comfortable wins but knowing how things have been going recently and also knowing how the season series usually tends to go against the Mets, I’d say that it’s safe to just go ahead and prepare yourself for more drama going forward. Apparently, that’s how the Braves like it for now!