On to LA! Braves Beat Phillies

Michael Harris II hits a 3-run homer to electrify the crowd in Game Three.

Note: Links provide short videos of all the action.

[Read the 2026 Braves season story.]

This year, the Phillies didn’t knock us out. The Braves beat the Phillies in the postseason (see here). I don’t think I’ve ever typed that before. Feels great!

Game One had us down 3–2 with two outs in the eighth. Michael Harris II kept us alive with an infield single. Ozzie Albies got hit by a pitch. Austin Riley came up against ace reliever Jhoan Duran and hit a three-run homer on the first pitch. We won 5 – 3. After a regular season of .219 and 201 strikeouts, Riley picked an excellent time to contribute. Jerry said he erased “the whole crappy season with one swing.” Hard to disagree.

Ta-da! Our nerve-wracking formula worked again. Get some runners aboard, then hit one out. Harris had three hits and scored twice. Albies hit an RBI triple. Yaz drove in a run. Then Riley delivered the big swing. The stadium erupted.

Sale gave us nine strikeouts in 6⅓ innings, but the bullpen made things uncomfortable before Riley rescued the afternoon. In his first postseason appearance, Didier Fuentes gave up a two-run triple, scoring the runners Sale had left behind. Dylan Lee handled the eighth and Raisel Iglesias closed it. My confidence in our relief pitching survived. With qualifications.

Game Two was going even better. Tyler Mahle pitched seven innings and allowed one run. He has been about as good as anybody since coming over to Atlanta, and he gave us exactly the start we needed. We led 3 – 1. Six outs from sending Philadelphia home. Six outs from having a little time to arrange things for Los Angeles.

Manager Walt Weiss called for Dylan Lee.

I hadn’t felt good about Lee for a while. His September had been bad. Dylan Dodd looked like the better choice to me, and I thought so before Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper disastrously delivered back-to-back homers. Weiss had his reason. Lee had retired that same part of the order the day before. Fine. But Lee located his slider too high in the strike zone the day before, just as he has all September. He got away with it then. Not this time. Two swings at poorly located pitches and there went the lead.

Then Alec Bohm hit one off Fuentes with two outs in the tenth. Philadelphia won 4 - 3. I thought of it as a mistake pitch. After the game, Baldwin said it was a good pitch. Either way, it left the park, and the Phillies were all set to crush our hearts again.

Still, Philadelphia deserves credit. Six outs from elimination and they scraped back into the series. We had no homers, scored three runs and watched the bullpen fail. Mahle had supplied his part of the formula. But, clearly, our hitters and bullpen didn’t come through. Our September record of 2 – 8 when we score 3 runs or less was haunting me.

Weiss took some flak for using Lee. I didn’t care for his decision. He has made mistakes but usually doesn’t repeat them. He had managed this patched-up team to 94 wins and a division title. I still think he could legitimately be Manager of the Year. I also think he should have called for Dodd.

I thought Grant Holmes would certainly start Game Three. We are kind of short on starters, you may have heard. But Weiss surprised me with Ray Kerr instead. I have not mentioned him before. He missed all of last season with an injury that took him until late in this season to recover from. He had pitched only 18⅓ innings with 11 Ks and a 1.47 ERA. All in spot relief appearances.

It was a gutsy call. An elimination game against the Phillies, and we were starting a guy most fans knew very little about and had never even appeared in a postseason game before. Career-wise his ERA was an ugly 4.33. 

I thought he was "the towel" when I saw him on the roster for the series. Every team needs some guy to throw out there when they are losing bad. Keep those good arms sharp for another day. Although he pitched decently in September, he was a nobody. 

Turns out just a couple of years ago the guy was working retail and pitched in Alaska of all places. And somehow came up from there. Got drafted by San Diego who might be the only team scouting Alaska for talent. Was let go. Atlanta picked him up because that's what you do, pick up dozens of players and sift through them.  Most never make it. Kerr made it but...a nobody.

There were plenty of Braves fans online who apparently began preparing their season-ending complaints right there. By the end of the night Kerr was getting the unlikely-hero treatment.

Kerr gives the standing ovation a Tomahawk chop as he leaves the field.

Weiss wanted a left-hander to face Schwarber and Harper early. I thought, okay, maybe two innings. Kerr gave him 3⅓ scoreless innings, allowing one hit and one walk. His fourth career start. In a game that could end our season. That is a pretty good way to introduce yourself to people who haven’t been paying attention. I was among them, actually.

Harris helped. He used the formula. His first-inning three-run homer was a punch in the face of Philadelphia starter Aaron Nola (who, interestingly enough because he’s a very good pitcher, has given up 21 home runs in Truist Park, more than any other opposing pitcher). We had spent the previous afternoon watching a lead disappear. Now we had three runs before Nola could get comfortable.

Albies added a two-run homer. Olson hit a solo homer. Three guys, three swings, six runs. Every run we scored came on a home run. I had asked for two to four hitters contributing together. Three worked nicely.

Holmes followed Kerr. Weiss worked through the bullpen. Dodd got his turn and allowed a triple and a sacrifice fly, so my preferred lefty had his own uncomfortable moment. He did retire Schwarber. Then, with Harper coming up and four outs remaining, Chris Sale came out of the bullpen.

The place erupted almost as much as it had after Harris’s homer.

It was actually an emotional moment. Here we were on the hard-fought edge of getting into the “real” play-offs. With a real lead. After everything that happened in Game Two, and knowing his career story, seeing Sale walk into this game was its own event. He struck out Harper to end the eighth to a thunderous roar. Few players are hated more in Atlanta than Bryce Harper, a formidable nemesis. Probably a nice guy, but he’s a Philly. Booo! Then Sale came back for the ninth. Four outs. Three strikeouts. Twenty-one pitches. The Phillies were done.

There is still a reasonable question about using him. We had a four-run lead. Brent Suter and Victor Mederos were available, and both had been pitching well lately. Lee and Iggy had worked in the first two games, though Iggy was warming as a backup. Weiss had alternatives. He chose Sale.

Plus, Sale had volunteered. It was also the day in his routine when he would normally throw between starts. He has said he’s been throwing harder in those sessions lately. Twenty-one pitches fit roughly into the throwing he would have done anyway. And...and he becomes one of very few pitchers to ever throw the first pitch and the last pitch of a play-off series. Ta-da!

Chris Sale strikes out the last batter of the series. The Braves beat the Phillies in the postseason.

Given how things played out, Sale should still be available for Game Two in Los Angeles. Facing Harper in an elimination game adds a little something to an ordinary throwing session, of course. But, honestly, it’s like having two pitchers instead of one.

Especially in October. Oh, sweet October baseball! We were not eliminated in September. We were not eliminated at all. In fact, let me type it again. The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the postseason!

My anxiety had plenty of supporting evidence in this series. So did my friend Jerry’s confidence. We won with the 2026 Season formula in Game One, watched it fail in Game Two, then put it together early enough in Game Three to actually breathe a little. Weiss found another way through. Kerr gave us more than we expected. Three bats showed up together. Sale finished it.

We really did play into October. Now we get the Dodgers.

Jerry’s ride has another stop. Los Angeles. We’ve been there before. In 2021 it turned up golden. Come on, guys. Let’s do it again.

Are we having fun yet?