Braves Comeback Falls Short, Fried Falters in Phillies’ NLDS Game 1 Win

Before Tuesday, this postseason had been a tale of a starting pitcher renaissance, with over a third of the starters in the Wild Card round authoring shutout performances. It was a good bet that we would see more of the same in this season’s first playoff game between the Phillies and Braves, the majors’ second- and seventh-ranked teams, respectively, in starter WAR. Yet neither Max Fried nor Ranger Suárez made it out of the fourth inning, garnering just 10 outs apiece on a warm, sunny day in Atlanta.

Fried didn’t look right from the outset. In his shortest start since April of 2021, his velocity was down across the board. With the exception of his curveball, all of his other pitches saw decreased spin as well, and for some, less movement, too. Fried dealt with similar dips in his last start, but he was also coping with illness. Today’s loss of crispness comes with no such caveat, not to mention six extra days of rest.

The trouble started for Fried after two quick outs in the first, the second of which was a 102-mph flyout off the bat of Rhys Hoskins. One strike away from going down 1-2-3, J.T. Realmuto got the Phillies’ rally started by lacing a grounder off of the glove of a diving Orlando Arcia, whom the Braves have continued to play at second base over rookie Vaughn Grissom, who slumped at the end of the season.

Next up was Bryce Harper, who notched his first of three hits on the day, lining a ball into left-center on an 0–1 pitch. Harper hadn’t looked like the same player since returning from his broken thumb toward the end of the regular season, but his playoff performance so far has done a lot to silence the worries. With two on, Nick Castellanos, swinging at the first pitch, drove in Realmuto by dunking a soft liner in front of Ronald Acuña Jr., which the right fielder may have caught if not for his balky knee. Like Harper, that was the first of three hits for Castellanos, who hadn’t netted a single one in the Wild Card round. And with the Phillies down to their final strike of the inning once again, Alec Bohm lined an 0–2 pitch to right, scoring Harper. The Phillies strung together four straight two-out singles, none of them cheap, to jump out to a 2–0 lead.

In the bottom half of the first, Acuña Jr. led off with a double rocketed down the left field line, the hardest-hit ball of the game at 112.8 mph off the bat. Suárez then struck out Dansby Swanson, the first of the shortstop’s four strikeouts on the day, before walking Austin Riley and Matt Olson to load the bases. After taking a 2–1 fastball for a borderline strike, William Contreras took another fastball high. But the Braves failed to capitalize, as Suárez got the All-Star catcher out in front on a middle-in curveball; all Contreras could do was weakly ground a tailor-made double-play ball to Edmundo Sosa at short.

This first inning proved to be emblematic of the starters’ days. Each single off of Fried in the first had an expected batting average of at least .440; on the day, the Phillies managed a .471 BABIP against him, buoyed by a .405 xBABIP and a 44.4% hard-hit rate. Besides the first, the Phillies notched two more two-spots off of the southpaw, in the third and fourth innings. And while two of the six runs were unearned, that was due to an error on an errant throw to first by Fried himself; the two-time Gold Glover was just off on the whole. The lackluster effort represented the first time he had allowed four or more earned runs since June.

To his credit, Suárez managed to pitch through some jams. After escaping a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the first, he had to wriggle out of another bases-loaded mess in the third. With two outs, he stood up against Travis d’Arnaud, whose solo shot the previous inning elevated him into sixth place all time in postseason home runs as a catcher. Suárez went after the veteran backstop with back-to-back changeups to start the at-bat, then blew a four-seamer by him up and in, the same location the catcher took to deep left field in his last at-bat. After missing high with a fastball, Suárez got d’Arnaud fishing with another four-seamer up.

While he finished with a career-high five walks against a Braves team that ranked just 19th in walk rate, the southpaw’s stuff looked good, and he was able to net some timely whiffs. If the series goes to five games, we just might see Suárez back out there.

When Fried departed, the Phillies’ offense mostly went with him. Hoskins knocked the lefty out of the game with a double, but Philadelphia hitters went just 4-for-19 with seven strikeouts and no walks the rest of the afternoon. Dylan Lee was the most impressive Braves reliever, racking up four whiffs on just 12 pitches. Jackson Stephens also tossed two scoreless, generating six whiffs on 27 pitches. The Phillies did add another run to go up 7–1 in the top of the fifth via a Jean Segura double, Matt Vierling sac bunt, and Sosa sac fly, but were otherwise quiet.

The Braves scored two in the bottom of the fifth themselves. After Connor Brogdon got Riley to pop out to Segura, Olson worked a seven-pitch walk. Then, looking to make up for a bases-loaded double play in the first, Contreras ripped a 1–1 changeup that got too much of the plate middle-in 110.9 mph down the left field line for a double. d’Arnaud followed that up by smacking a 1–0 middle-in cutter down the line himself, and suddenly it was 7–3.

Brogdon then walked Arcia on eight pitches in a contentious at-bat; Arcia audibly screamed after a 2-2 brush-back as the crowd came to life. But the Phillies had seen enough of Brogdon, and the next 11 Braves were set down in order by a Brad Hand/Seranthony Domínguez/José Alvarado combo. Domínguez, who notched three strikeouts across two frames, looked especially sharp in his longest outing since May 2019. The oft-injured righty hit 99 mph on the gun and netted four whiffs on 18 pitches.

For the ninth, the Phillies brought in starter-turned-closer Zach Eflin, who ran out of time to build his stamina back up after a late-season knee injury. Acuña Jr. led things off with his third hit of the game, an infield single to the left side that a shifted Segura almost turned into a webgem. Next came Swanson, 0-for-4 with four strikeouts to that point. But after getting ahead 2–0, he rapped a sinker on the lower-outside corner off the right field wall. A good rebound for the less-than-surehanded Castellanos in right forced him to stay at first, but Acuña Jr. scooted to third. Eflin struck out Riley on four pitches; the powerful third baseman mustered just one walk against three whiffs in five plate appearances on the day. But then up came Olson. After whiffing at a 1–1 sinker middle-low, the slugger didn’t miss the next one he saw that came on a 2-2 count, and in much the same spot. Olson took the worm-burner deep to straightaway center, bringing the Braves to within one.

Contreras stepped in with the crowd on its feet. He flicked an 0–2 cutter into shallow right for what looked like a sure hit — a ball with an xBA of .460 — but Castellanos made a beautiful sliding grab. That’s the last time I call him less than surehanded.

With the Braves’ momentum stalled, d’Arnaud grounded out weakly to short to end the game.

The much-maligned Phillies defense held up in this one; Castellanos made not one but two outstanding plays in the bottom of the ninth, and it was the Braves who made the crucial error. If not for Fried’s poor throw and the unearned runs that followed, the outcome may have been reversed. Now the Braves will have to right the ship against the Phillies’ two aces, while theirs will likely be sidelined until Game 5. Even then, after such a poor showing today, it would be hard for the Braves to count on Fried. Needless to say, the Braves have a hole to dig themselves out of; per ZiPS, the Phillies now have a 65.1% chance of advancing to the NLCS.