Consider Thursday a blip on the radar for the rolling Braves.
They couldn’t muster any offense to support their ace Chris Sale, dropping the series finale against the Cubs 2-0 at Truist Park. Still, the Braves won the series and went 4-2 over six games against the Dodgers and Cubs, their peers atop the National League’s hierarchy.
“If you told me we’d put up a zero as an offense, I have a hard time believing that,” Sale said. “It was just one of those nights. It was a tough night. It’s going to happen. You can’t forget that that’s a really good ballclub over there and we won the series.”
A choir of Cubs pitchers – Ben Brown, Hoby Milner, Phil Maton, Jacob Webb and Daniel Palencia – held the Braves to five hits over nine frames. The offense struck out 13 times and walked once.
The Braves had produced 23 runs over their past four games, so they’ll give Chicago its due credit.
“We just couldn’t get anything going offensively,” manager Walt Weiss said. “Brown, the breaking ball below the zone, we had a hard time laying off. That’s a good arm. Just one of those nights, we couldn’t score.”
Sale was again brilliant, surrendering one unearned run on five hits over six innings. He struck out eight and walked two, lowering his season ERA to 1.96.
Oddly enough, the Braves’ only two losses to the Dodgers and Cubs were Sale’s two starts. Sale surrendered just three runs (two earned) over 13 innings in those outings. He struck out 15 and walked two.
The unearned run Thursday off Sale was because of Ha-Seong Kim’s throwing error that allowed Ian Happ to advance to third and score on a grounder. Happ added further insurance with a homer off Reynaldo Lopez in the eighth.
Kim’s error was a result of haste. He appeared unbalanced fielding the ball, then rushed to deliver a high flip to second baseman Ozzie Albies that skied above him and rolled into the right-outfield grass.
“It looked like (the ball) kicked to the right about halfway to him, I think it got his footwork out of whack there,” Weiss said. “He was in a tough position to try to flip the ball.”
This was Kim’s first series of the season after a finger injury had sidelined him, so one could believe part of his miscue could be attributed to rust. Weiss said it was more just a fluky instance: “He’s a hell of a shortstop. It was a tricky play.”
The Braves begin a three-game series against the Red Sox on Friday. It’s part of MLB Rivalry Weekend, a nod to the Braves’ past in Boston from 1871 to 1952.
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