Braves secure sweep via very normal baseball victory, 5-2

After two bonkers comeback wins to take the series on Friday and Saturday, the Braves, perhaps unexpectedly, engaged in a perfectly normal baseball contest in which they also emerged victorious by a 5-2 score. They did normal things like hitting some homers, playing defense, and having a starter charged with a reasonable amount of runs in a start lasting (barely) more than five innings. For their efforts, they come away with a sweep of the Diamondbacks and a 6-2 record as they head into a four-game set with the Mets.

• Box Score

Chris Sale got the start for the Braves and did the very normal thing of throwing a 1-2-3 first inning. He followed that up with two more perfect frames, though one of his outs involved Blaze Anderson being called out for running out of the baseline as he sprinted to first. Meanwhile, the Braves wasted little time in getting to Ryne Nelson — Matt Olson took him deep to start the second, and after three more singles in the inning loaded the bases, Chadwick Tromp hit a sacrifice fly to make it a 2-0 game.

After that, Nelson went on a bit of a run, striking out the first four hitters facing him for a second time in a row.

That brought the game to the fourth, where Sale had a bit of a hiccup, somewhat similar to his one stumble in his Braves debut. Corbin Carroll broke up Sale’s bid for perfection with a flare into left, and then Lourdes Gurriel Jr. “singled” with an end-of-bat bleeder that trickled slightly past Ozzie Albies and put runners on the corners. Sale then blithely ran afoul of the disengagements rule, resulting in a balk that put Arizona on the board. Christian Walker followed with a hard-hit single to center to tie things up at two runs apiece. And then, just like happened in his first start, the momentary lapse in effectiveness evaporated: Sale caught Eugenio Suarez looking for the second out, and then got Randal Grichuk to ground out to end the inning.

The game didn’t stay tied for very long at all — Michael Harris II apparently guessed (correctly!!) that he was going to get a first-pitch changeup from Nelson, and obliterated it into right field for what ended up being the decisive run.

The Diamondbacks threatened in the fifth: Alexander reached on a leadoff single, made it to second on a wild Sale offering while Tucker Barnhart tried to bunt him over, and then actually made it to third when Barnhart actually got a pitch he could successfully bunt. But, it ended up being pointless, as bunts often are, because ninth-place hitter Kevin Newman, called up to the majors earlier today, hit a grounder right at Albies, who was playing in given the situation. The Braves then had a decision to make: whether to pull Sale before batter number 19 (Ketel Marte), or let him persevere and attempt to close the book on five innings. They chose the latter, and after a seven-pitch battle, Marte hit a ball hard (100.7 mph) but too high (launch angle of 35 degrees) and it nestled harmlessly in the glove of Ronald Acuña Jr. for the third out.

Sale stayed in to retire Carroll in the top of the sixth, but then in a very commendable decision was actually relieved of his duties. Sure, he was at 100 pitches, but after season upon season of having things go sideways on the Braves attempting to navigate the third time through the order, and the possibility that they might ask Sale to extend his outing given the heavy bullpen usage earlier in the series, it was great to see. And, not only that, but this time sound process was rewarded with immediately awesome results, because the Atlanta bullpen continued living up to the epitome of stinge. Joe Jimenez relieved Sale and got the next five batters with little issue, including two strikeouts. Austin Riley backed him up with a very good play to retire Gurriel at one point, which makes me happy because Riley legitimately growing into an average-or-better defender would be awesome. Tyler Matzek yielded a leadoff walk (boo!) but then was the beneficiary of three pathetically weak balls in play by Newman, Marte, and Carroll.

The Braves, meanwhile, quieted down offensively after Harris gave them the lead. At one point, Acuña reached on a one-out error by Alexander, who had a wackily awful series, but Riley struck out with him on second to end that frame and Ryne Nelson’s day. The latter was replaced by Kyle Nelson in the seventh, which should either be A) illegal or B) forced to occur every single time he pitches, and Nelson 2 went five up, five down in Nelson 1’s stead.

Riley ended up atoning in the eighth, where he gave the Braves some unneeded insurance by mashing a Miguel Castro pitch into left for a two-run absolute no-doubter (446 feet of estimated distance).

Some of you might remember that last year, Riley also obliterated a hanging Castro slider, that time for a three-run homer that delivered unto Atlanta another comeback win against these Snakes. This wasn’t that dramatic, but it was still awesome.

And then, with Raisel Iglesias unavailable due to him helping to lock down the first two wins in this series, Pierce Johnson wrapped things up with a fairly easy ninth.

All in all, little to complain about in this one — the Braves mashed three dingers, Chris Sale was oh-so-good (6/0 K/BB, 0.95 FIP, 1.49 xFIP), and so on and so forth. Maybe you’d have liked to see them muss up Nelson 1 a little more (7/0 K/BB ratio in five innings), but they keyed in enough on him drifting towards the zone and hit two homers off of him, so it worked out fine. At this point, probably the only thing to really watch and wait for is Acuña being able to time up fastballs again — the reigning NL MVP went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, a weak pop, and that reach-on-error. He swung through three eminently hittable fastballs in the process. It’s only a matter of timing for him in both senses, so hopefully that resolves itself soon.

The Braves will stick around at home and play host to the Mets for four games this week, starting Monday night.