The Braves had 'em all the way. Yep, had 'em all the way. At least, that's what we'll tell ourselves whenever a scintilla of a memory of this game pops into our brains, right? It took 12 innings, a brief blip from Chris Sale, and run-scoring scrambles in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh, another huuuuge hit from Ha-Seong Kim, and finally, a walkoff rope off the bat of Drake Baldwin, but the Braves ultimately prevailed in the opener of the final series against their division rivals.
How do you recap this game? It felt like living a few different lifetimes. I guess we'll just go sequentially, but this is a game that warrants watching the highlights.
After a 45-minute weather-related delay, things got started and Sale pretty much picked up where he left off. The top of the Philadelphia order went down on a flyout and two nasty strikeouts. Aaron Nola retired the first two Braves he faced, but then Matt Olson broke a two-week homerless slide with a slice the other way that juuust managed not to go foul and instead became his 38th longball of the year. A homer from the recently homer-shy Braves offense seemed to be an auspicious sign, but things quickly took a turn for the worse.
After the first two outs of the eighth, Edmundo Sosa caught a Sale slider and yanked it for a single. Sale then issued a rare walk to Bryan De La Cruz of all people, and then hit J.T. Realmuto with the next pitch, loading the bases.
***Derek Hill complaints interlude***

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