Atlanta – These Braves are showing the baseball world what the Mets (and the rest of the Eastern National League) have learned previously:
If you let them slip off the hook, like The Bride in “Kill Bill,” they’ll come back to bite you.
More faded than beige while in Houston, this World Championships took a real fun turn here at Truist Park, and you can thank the stadium’s tenants, who now live just one win away from their first title in 26 years.
The brave seventh-inning successive fortunes jumped to a 3-2 win over the Astros Saturday night in Game 4, giving Atlanta a 3-1 advantage with a chance to wrap up baseball’s season at home Sunday night.
“I’ve always said the teams with this young kid are the teams that do well in the post-season,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker.
“They’ve been playing hard with us,” Astros manager Dusty Becker said of the Braves. “They were playing with us real hard.”
They will have to stay strong. Atlanta, whose crew has perished from injuries, will try to secure its first championship since 1995 with its second straight game.
The first Bullpen, played in front of a crowd including former President Donald Trump (who naturally joined his tomahawk band, Yesh), was all thanks to Kyle Wright, the “big guy” who eased the tension of freshman Dylan Lee after just four hits – This was my first major league start, due to the loud screaming – and he proceeded to pick up 14 hits with only one round allowed. This stabilized the competition for the Braves, who, as during the 2021 season, needed a little time to get off the ground.
However, they managed to get out of the hole 2-0, thanks to an Austin Riley double in the sixth RBI round against Phil Mattoon, then a 1-2 set in the lucky seventh inning against Christian Javier: First Dansby Swanson tied the match by a narrow margin. Running a fast 0 and 2 ball the other way over the right field wall, then pressing hitter Jorge Soler, who has wasted time this month with COVID-19, drilled a sliding 2 and 1 to get a laser traveling at 107 mph, essentially beat the Left Astros player Jordan Alvarez (usually the designated hitter) over the fence for the Atlanta advantage.
The stellar Braves took care of the rest, scoring a pair of closing innings (with an eighth inning assist by October stud Eddie Rosario, who made a stunning stab from Jose Altuve’s shot into the left field wall). Now, Baker, Houston’s beloved skipper, finds himself one loss away from the 24th consecutive season of management without a show.
Then again, this won’t be the first party in 2021 that these brave people shit.
Remember 91 days in a row atop the NL East, from May 8th through August 6th? They posted a very modest 42-40 record during that time. They only stayed in the shed because the rest of the section was stinking. Conversely, the Braves and Phillies stayed fit because the Mets couldn’t jump forward.
Due to this slack, the Braves, despite losing their top player Ronald Acuna Jr. to an injury at the end of the season just before the All-Star Game, did so on the trading deadline, acquiring six new players including Soler and Rosario. This massive import eventually mobilized and revitalized the group to seize the fourth consecutive Division title as the Mets, under new ownership, successfully achieved the kind of second-half swan diving that had become familiar during their previous ownership.
You can’t just beat these brave ones. Give them an inch, and they’ll leave you wondering what happened.
“This is our house,” Rosario said through an interpreter. “We are coming in tomorrow with that energy and that focus. We know they are a resilient group and they don’t give up, but our heads are high now, and we will be ready to play.”
Underestimating those words, that sentiment, is to risk ending your season at their mercy. Just ask the Mets.
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