CLEVELAND – The Atlanta Braves had to lose eventually.
And even still, it still felt like they would find a way to win a 10th straight game on Tuesday. That’s how well things are going.
But they saw their winning streak end at nine games in a 6-5 loss to the Cleveland Guardians in 10 innings at Progressive Field.
Five observations:
1. With the Braves down a run in the ninth inning, Ozzie Albies launched a game-tying homer – his second blast of the night – off Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase. And even after the Braves didn’t score in the top of the 10th, they turned a rare 1-6-4 double play to give themselves a chance to escape the inning.
“After that double play, I was thinking, ‘God, I just hope they get a crack at this next half-inning and see what we can do,’” manager Brian Snitker said. “It was a great double play by everybody. Just wanted one more crack. Didn’t get it.”
With Raisel Iglesias on the mound, the next batter, David Fry, lined a ball that went just beyond Eddie Rosario’s outstretched glove in left field. The winning run scored, which snapped Atlanta’s streak. The Braves hadn’t lost since June 23.
“When I hit that homer to tie the game up, I was like, ‘OK, we have a great chance,’” Albies said. “Then we turn the double play too and I was like, ‘Yes, I’m happy.’”
But this is baseball. The Braves were going to lose again at some point. They battled. They simply came up short.
“It’s a hard-fought game,” Snitker said. “We ended up a run shy. We battled back to put ourselves in a good position to win the game. (The Guardians) get paid to play too.”
2. Despite everything that occurred in the first nine innings, the Braves had to have felt good about their chances in extra innings. Their lineup is hot. The at-bats have been terrific.
But the Braves didn’t score in the top of the 10th.
The final sequence: Eddie Rosario lifted a 264-foot fly ball. Cleveland’s Myles Straw, who was moving in, caught it and fired toward home to nail pinch-runner Sam Hilliard.
It was an aggressive – and perhaps questionable – send by third base coach Ron Washington. The ball wasn’t hit particularly deep. Straw had the momentum moving in as he caught it, and could put everything behind the throw. The catcher had to reach toward the first-base side to catch the throw, and still easily tagged out Hilliard.
“That guy made a great play,” Snitker said. “If he doesn’t throw it right on the bag, we score the run.”
3. Kirby Yates, who has pitched much better recently, entered a one-run game in the seventh and allowed two runs.
He gave up three two-strike hits. The Guardians entered the game with the second-best strikeout rate in baseball, and they lived up to their reputation.
“It’s just a matter of putting guys away and I didn’t do that,” Yates said. “You gotta give them credit. They put the ball in play and they made things happen.”
Still, Yates has a 3.31 ERA. After a rough start to the season, he had surrendered only one run over his last 8 2/3 innings before Tuesday.
“I’m kind of a guy that likes to look at the body of work at the end of the season,” Yates said. “I think you try and get into grooves and feel good about what you’re doing. I’ve been feeling good about what I’ve been doing. I hate to give up a lead in this game, but reality is, it happened.”
4. Kolby Allard took something from his Texas Rangers days that he wants to apply.
“I think one of my biggest things is just limiting the big innings, limiting damage when there’s a lot of damage to be had,” he said. “And I think as long as we can continue to kind of limit the big innings when the innings speed up a little bit on us, limiting damage.”
He never spiraled on Tuesday, even if he said he didn’t have his best stuff. Amed Rosario hit a two-run double and a homer off Allard.
But Allard only allowed those three runs over five innings.
5. The Braves found themselves down two runs while facing former Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber.
In a four-run fifth, Atlanta put together a stretch in which six of seven batters reached at one point. Albies hit a two-run homer before the Braves eventually took a two-run lead.
After their last loss, the Braves won nine straight games. After the one before that, they built an eight-game winning streak.
Time to begin another one.
“Right away, right away,” Albies said. “Tomorrow’s a new day and a new beginning. Let’s do it again.”
