Power outage and sequencing shenanigans sinks Braves 1-0

With Max Fried on the mound, the Braves tried to get the win in game 1 of 4 against the Phillies.

William Contreras and Austin Riley singled in the first, but the Braves couldn’t bring either of them around to score. The next baserunner of the game came in the bottom of the second, as Austin was unable to cleanly field a Realmuto chopper that was forgivingly scored a single. Dansby almost managed to grab the ball and throw out Realmuto at first, but the throw was a tenth of a second late. The Phillies catcher moved to third on a dribbler through the right side of the infield and then came home to score on a sac fly. This was a very annoying way to concede the game’s first run, but Fried escaped the inning from there.

Max found himself in some trouble in the third, as a single and a walk started the inning, but he struck out the next two batters and got a chopper to first base to end the inning. Two more singles from Riley and Olson amounted to nothing once again for Atlanta in the fourth. Nothing much of consequence happened through the fifth. Fried threw 107 pitches, but managed to keep the Phillies to one lucky run through 5.0 innings. In the top of the sixth, the Braves loaded the bases for Michael Harris, with a double from Austin Riley and walks from Olson and Grissom. Harris still had the tough lefty-lefty matchup and pulled a grounder to the first baseman to end the inning, leaving the score at 1-0, Phillies.

Dylan Lee and AJ Minter covered the sixth, seventh and eighth innings for Atlanta, and easily dispatched the Phillies while the Atlanta offense continued to flounder. Professional Pitching Mound Critic Jose Alvarado got the last out of the eighth and came back out for the save in the ninth. Ozuna blooped in a two out single before Robbie Grossman worked a 3-1 count. A dubious call led to a full count instead of a walk on a ball three inches inside of the plate from an umpire who was horrid all night, and Grossman chased a pitch well above the zone to strike out ending the game as a 1-0 Philly victory. That was not a fun game.

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