The Atlanta Braves were back at Truist Park on Thursday night for the final game of a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs. The FIFA World Cup made an appearance in The Battery today. The 13-pound soccer world championship trophy is in the middle of a pre-World Cup tour. The Braves, well, they are in the middle of working on a special season. Atlanta is the first team in Major League Baseball to win 30 games.
The Boston Red Sox are having the opposite kind of season, languishing last in the American League East. The Red Sox series usually brings even more fans to Truist Park than normal. Boston has a better record on the road this season (10-11) than they do at Fenway Park (8-13), so it might welcome some fans on the road.
On Thursday night, Chris Sale, an award-winner in his own right, was back on the mound. The former Cy Young Award winner was looking for his seventh win of the season. Sale only won seven of his 20 starts last year before injuring his ribs and missing the remainder of the season. This season, he has been on a roll. In eight starts, Sale has accumulated 56 strikeouts in 49 innings of work.
He wouldn’t pick up his seventh win on this day. Sale (6-2 overall) was pulled from the game after six innings, having given up five hits and striking out eight Cubs. The run wasn’t earned.
After the game, Sale, who said the plan is to win as many games as possible, didn’t seem worried about the outing. “Look at the big picture, we took two out of three from a good team,” he said.
Sale got into a bit of trouble in the first, putting Alex Bergman and Ian Happ on first and third base after a pair of singles before striking out Seiya Suzuki and Matt Shaw to end the inning.
The Cubs were starting Ben Brown, a 26-year-old right-hander mostly used out of the bullpen, for the second time this season. Just like Sale, Brown had two strikeouts in the first inning. He got into trouble, too, but this time it was in the second inning after Michael Harris II singled and Austin Riley was hit by a pitch. With one out in the books, Brown struck out Dominic Smith and got Ha-Seong Kim to pop out to second base. Crisis averted.
More trouble for Sale came in the fifth when the Cubs scored their first run of the game on a Matt Shaw groundout that gave the Chicago Cubs a 1-0 lead. A play earlier, a ball was hit to Kim at shortstop, but an errant throw to Ozzie Albies at second allowed the runners to be at first and second base.
The Cubs added another run in the eighth when Reynaldo Lopez, in for Sale, gave up a solo home run to Ian Happ on a 1-2 count. Aaron Bummer came in for Lopez with two outs in the eighth.
In the ninth inning, down 2-0, the Braves didn’t get much from the middle of their batting order. Harris II and Dubon struck out, but Riley singled to right field before Smith popped out to end the game.
Braves manager Walt Weiss called the game “a good outing for Chris, but just couldn’t get anything going.”
First pitch for Friday’s game is scheduled for 7:15 p.m.
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