"This Is Mine": Braves Battery Beats the Dodgers

The Atlanta Braves battery beat the Los Angeles Dodgers last night and made history. Some of the history is crazy baseball stat stuff. Some was legit. Drake Baldwin became the only catcher since 1900 to lead off the game with a home run, on the first pitch even, that ended up being the only run scored the whole game. The Braves rookie hit the first pitch he saw last night 402 feet into the Chop House in right field.

A leadoff home run providing the only run in a 1-0 game has happened only 33 times in MLB history. Never by a catcher. Catchers, you know, rarely lead off. But that was it offensively. The Braves beat the World Champion Dodgers 1-0 before a packed house in Atlanta.

Then Chris Sale, the other half of the battery, took the mound to make a little history of his own. When the season started I half-jokingly asked my baseball friend Jerry if he thought the Braves could win the NL East with one starting pitcher.

That was all we seemed to have. Sale and a bunch of questionable starting talent. Well, through May, it turned out we had a lot more than that. But we didn't know it at the time. Bryce Elder, Martin Perez, Grant Holmes, and Reynaldo Lopez didn't exactly instill confidence.

But they have all been effective inconsistently at different times. Which is a nice way of saying that these spare parts have been good enough at different times throughout the season. Except in June when everybody seemed to suck, mainly because our hitting was terrible.

Jerry used to tell me: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds." I've never been completely sure what that even means but I reminded him of it today and he laughed. So far, the 2026 Atlanta Braves have known incredible streaks where they seem unbeatable, especially earlier in the season. And they have hit some losing streaks, especially in a June, I'd rather not think about. But, you can't forget it. It counts.

Still, here we are late in August, having not played that great recently but still leading the Philadelphia Phillies (who have been red hot lately) by five games in the loss column going into tonight's game. There are 28 games left to play. The Braves did not land a "solid starter" at the trade deadline, although they picked up Tyler Mahle who has pitched very well since coming over despite his 5-10 record. Another spare part.

Anyway, the point is, the question remains unchanged. Can the Atlanta Braves win the NL East with what is effectively one starting pitcher?

There are certain things that I love to see best in a baseball game. I love a grand slam. A great catch. Throwing a runner out at home. I've seen several triple plays. I love a run scoring single with two-outs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. Everybody loves that kind of stuff. But my favorite thing to see in baseball is something that was commonplace in my youth and now happens only a few times every season - a complete-game shutout by one pitcher. No bullpen. One arm, 27 outs.

Sale is 37 years old. He threw 109 pitches. 80 were strikes. He scattered 5 hits to baseball's most feared offensive line-up. No walks. 11 strikeouts. 0 runs for the Dodgers.

It was Sale’s first complete game in more than seven years and his first shutout since June 5, 2019. His 11 strikeouts gave him 95 career games with at least 10, seventh most in major-league history. But that's not the real history here.

At 37 years and 150 days, Sale became only the sixth pitcher since 1900 at that age or older to throw a shutout with at least ten strikeouts and no walks. The others include Cy Young, Eddie Plank, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Sale’s childhood idol, Randy Johnson (who did it in 2004 against the Braves).

Sale smoked baseball phenom Shohei Ohtani with a blistering 100.1 mph fastball. He had not thrown a pitch that hard since July 6, 2018. He was feeding off the crowd, the situation, the moment.

It was only the 15th pitch of Sale’s entire major-league career measured at 100 mph or more. Later he struck Ohtani out again with a 99.6 mph fastball above the strike zone. His final pitch of the game, number 109, was 98.6 mph, also a strikeout.

Baseball used to produce complete games routinely. A starter throwing 100+ pitches would barely have been worth mentioning. Today, once a starting pitcher gets somewhere around 85-90 pitches, everybody begins looking nervously toward the bullpen as if continuing might violate OSHA regulations.

Sale had thrown 97 pitches through eight innings. He told Manager Walt Weiss “This is mine.” So he was sent back out there for the ninth, still working the skinny run his battery mate Baldwin had given him on the first pitch from Dodger ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The crowd certainly erupted when Sale walked back onto the field for the ninth even though Braves relievers were warming. Former Brave Freddie Freeman singled to begin the inning. Weiss winced but Sale stayed. No need for a mound visit.

There was briefly an apparent final out, a double play that was overturned on replay. So Sale finished the game again with another strikeout. He actually got 28 outs but only 27 counted. Game over.

The Braves had swept the two-time defending World Series Champions for the first time since May 2013. All three games were decided by one run, 4-3, 6-5, and now 1-0. Atlanta moved to 79-55, one game behind Los Angeles for the second National League playoff bye.

I watched the usual guys I watch on YouTube today. 680 The Fan guys. The condensed game. Sale appeared on Pat McAfee’s show, which I normally don't watch because McAfee is mostly a zany college football guy. But YouTube's algorithm worked its sick magic on me. It was a 21-minute interview.

McAfee is perpetually excited. But this was different. He clearly admired what Sale had done. McAfee is 39, two years older than Sale. Much of the conversation became two aging athletes laughing about a sporting world increasingly dominated by younger bodies, modern analytics and carefully managed workloads.

McAfee called Sale one of the last of a dying breed. He was pumped that Sale had gone back out for the ninth. Sale’s nine-year-old son had been pumped too. Video showed him losing his mind when he realized his father was returning to finish the game. Of course, that stuff goes viral. I don't usually do viral but what the hell, I'm a Braves fan.

Sale laughed about his age and said he had already gone outside and played catch with his three boys the next morning. He admitted that first throw involved a small internal diagnostic. “All right, we’re good.”

Then Sale talked about why nights like this happen. “You only get one shot at being a professional baseball player. There’s no going back and redoing this.”

He talked about the coaching staff, training staff, front office, fans and especially his teammates putting everything they have into a season. Sale believes that creates an obligation. Leave everything out there on the field.

The Dodgers made the situation even more intense. They are the two-time defending champions. Some of baseball's greatest batters. Yet, the Braves had a sweep available. Truist Park was packed.

Sale described what happens when the game reaches those moments. “It’s either me or him and we’re going to find out right here, right now.” That is baseball stripped down to something very old. Facing Ohtani brought even more out of him.

Sale called him "the gold standard of the sport," a "generational player" doing things nobody has seen before. He also joked that you don’t throw Ohtani a casual get-me-over fastball unless you want him to hit it into next week.

The pumped up crowd contributed too. Sale said adrenaline changes according to the moment and the energy in the stadium. Three thousand indifferent people produce one experience. A packed house screaming during a 1-0 game against the Dodgers produces another. “You can feel that.” Likely that explains where 100.1 came from.

Oh yeah, only two pitchers age 37 or older in baseball history have ever thrown a 100+ mph pitch in a game. Jake DeGrom did it last season and Sale just did it this season.

The McAfee crew then produced one of those gloriously ridiculous baseball statistical combinations.

According to the statistics they cited, nobody in major-league history had previously combined all the circumstances surrounding Sale’s game. A shutout against the back-to-back defending World Series Champions. A lineup containing three former MVPs. The reigning World Series MVP, Yamamoto, as the opposing starter. At least ten strikeouts. No walks. A 1-0 victory.

Sale laughed at the statistical construction. These days in baseball you can pull out a stat for anything. He likes baseball history, but he also knows how this game works. Add enough conditions and eventually everybody becomes the first person in history to do something. He joked about adding the position of the sun, humidity, elevation and the Mason-Dixon Line.

The interview also revealed something about this Braves team that a pitching line cannot. Sale called it as good a group as he has ever played with.

That carries some weight coming from a man who has spent 16 years in the major leagues, played in Chicago and Boston, won a World Series, won a Cy Young Award, made ten All-Star teams and lived through enough injuries to joke that another one could simply be added to the pile.

He said the Braves trust each other. They have faith in each other. When things are going well, it is great. When things are going badly, it isn’t that bad. “There’s no panic.” Which is more than you could say for me a few days ago when the Phillies were only three games back in the loss column. A five game lead is a very slight cushion. With only three games you might as well be tied.

That may turn out to be more important than any of the wonderful statistical oddities surrounding this game.

Sale also talked about baseball as something passed between generations. At his first All-Star Game he sat around listening to Justin Verlander, CC Sabathia, Jered Weaver and Fernando Rodney. He learned to work quickly from Mark Buehrle. Now young pitchers sit around Sale at All-Star Games listening to him.

Maybe ten years from now some pitcher will say he learned something from Chris Sale that Sale learned from Buehrle, who learned it from somebody else. Thirty or forty years can pass that way. Baseball changes enormously and somehow remains baseball. Pitch counts change. Bullpens change. Analytics change. Velocity changes. The height of the mound changes. Pitchers are replaced by designated hitters in the line up.

Late night was a historic game, capping a great series by the Braves. But there's still 28 games to play. The Phillies are still breathing down our necks. Tonight Grant Holmes faces the Colorado Rockies. They are statistically the worst team in baseball. We should continue to win. But will our knack for inconsistency rear its ugly head again?

Can the Braves win the NL East with one starting pitcher?

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Go Braves!