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ATLANTA — These Braves are showing the baseball world what the Mets (and the rest of the National League East) learned earlier:
If you let them off the hook, a la The Bride in “Kill Bill,” they will come back to bite you.
This World Series, which was duller than beige while in Houston, has taken a real fun turn here at Truist Park, and you can thank the ballpark’s tenants, who now reside just one win away from their first title in 26 years.
Back-to-back homers in the seventh inning catapulted the Braves to a 3-2 victory over the Astros on Saturday night in Game 4, giving Atlanta a 3-1 advantage with the opportunity to conclude the baseball season at home Sunday night.
“I’ve always said the teams that have that little boy in them that comes out are teams that do good in the postseason,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
“They’ve been playing us tough,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said of the Braves. “They’ve been playing us real tough.”
They’ll have to stay tough. Atlanta, its pitching staff decimated by injuries, will try to secure its first championship since 1995 with its second straight bullpen game.
Bullpen game number one, played in front of a crowd featuring former President Donald Trump (who naturally joined in the tomahawk chop, yeesh), went swimmingly thanks most of all to Kyle Wright, the “bulk guy” who relieved jittery-looking rookie Dylan Lee after only four batters — it was Lee’s first major league start, for crying out loud — and proceeded to pick up 14 outs while permitting just one run. That stabilized the contest for the Braves, who, just as during their 2021 season, needed a little time to get going.
Get going they did, though, climbing out of their 2-0 hole, thanks to Austin Riley’s sixth-inning RBI double against Phil Maton and then the one-two combo in the lucky seventh against Cristian Javier: First Dansby Swanson tied the game by powering an 0-and-2 fastball the other way over the right-field wall, and then pinch hitter Jorge Soler, who missed time this month with COVID-19, drilled a 2-and-1 slider for a laser that, traveling at 107 mph, essentially beat Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez (normally a designated hitter) over the fence for the Atlanta advantage.
The Braves’ stellar bullpen took care of the rest, registering a pair of shutout innings (with an eighth-inning assist by October stud Eddie Rosario, who made a spectacular stab of Jose Altuve’s bullet to the left-field wall). Now, Baker, Houston’s beloved skipper, finds himself one loss away from a 24th straight season of managing without a parade.
Then again, this wouldn’t be the first 2021 party that these Braves pooped.
Remember the Mets’ 91 straight days atop the NL East, from May 8 until Aug. 6? They posted an extremely modest 42-40 record during that time. They stayed in the penthouse only because the rest of the division stunk. Conversely, the Braves and Phillies stayed relevant because the Mets couldn’t jump ahead.
Because of that stasis, the Braves, despite having lost their best player Ronald Acuña Jr. to a season-ending injury right before the All-Star Game, went for it at the trade deadline, acquiring six new players including Soler and Rosario. That massive import eventually mobilized and energized the group to capture its fourth straight division title as the Mets, under new ownership, pulled off the sort of second-half swan dive that became commonplace during their previous ownership.
You can’t just get by against these Braves. Give them an inch, they’ll leave you wondering what the heck happened.
“This is our house,” Rosario said through an interpreter. “We’re coming tomorrow with that energy and that focus. We know they’re a resilient group and they don’t give up, but we have our heads high right now, and we’re going to be ready to play.”
To underestimate those words, that vibe, is to risk ending your season at their mercy. Just ask the Mets.
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