The Seventh Their Heaven, the Braves Beat the Marlins in NLDS Game 1

By and large, today’s NLDS Game 1 between the Braves and Marlins followed a predictable script. Atlanta came in having lost just once all year with Max Fried on the mound, and while the southpaw wasn’t sharp, he held the fort long enough for his homer-happy teammates to take control. Rallying behind long balls by Travis d’Arnaud and Dansby Swanson — and buoyed by the usual strong bullpen effort — the Braves prevailed by a score of 9-5.

The top of the first didn’t portend what was to follow. Fried’s first inning comprised just 11 pitches — it would have been eight had third baseman Austin Riley not committed a two-out throwing error — and all of them were strikes. A repeat of last week’s pitch-efficient, cruise-control effort versus the Cincinnati Reds looked to be in the works.

Looks can be deceiving, though Miami’s starter didn’t exactly string together goose eggs either. Two pitches into Sandy Alcantara’s outing, Atlanta led 1-0. Reminding everyone that he’s one of baseball’s best players, Ronald Acuña Jr. deposited an outside fastball into the right-field seats at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. (Hello bubble.) The tale of the tape was 428, the bat flip was just juicy enough, and Alcantara was anything but happy.

The top of the second began with Miguel Rojas catapulting a Fried offering 418 feet into the left-field seats. The Miami shortstop isn’t exactly what you’d call a bopper, but his regular season might be best described as boffo. Asked about his breakout with the bat — Rojas logged a career-high (by far) 142 wRC+ — he pointed to a confluence of opportunity and experience.

“Remember, this my third year playing every day,” Rojas told me in late September. “Early in my career it was kind of tough, because I wasn’t playing every day. Once you have that opportunity, you start to know what the pitchers want to do to you, and that creates confidence. I feel like that’s the key to my success as of late.”

The third inning offered ample evidence that Fried wouldn’t be going deep into the game. Hits by Magneuris Sierra and Jon Berti put runners on the corners, and Garrett Cooper sent both scampering home with a double into the left-field corner. Then Brian Anderson plated Cooper with a single to center. It was 4-1 Fish, and Fried was very much on the ropes. He otherwise survived the onslaught, only to be done for the day an inning later.

The top of the fourth nearly included pugilism. Alcantara plunked Acuña with a 98 mph heater to the hip, and the Braves outfielder was understandably miffed. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed — this despite it being Acuña’s fifth plunking by a Marlins’ hurler — and nothing transpired beyond some icy glares and a handful of choice words. Braves manager Brian Snitker, despite some obvious irritation, told reporters after the game that he didn’t think it was intentional.

Alcantara paid the piper for his errant offering. Acuña scored on a Marcell Ozuna double, before d’Arnaud drove Ozuna in with another of the same. Suddenly it was 4-3 and Atlanta’s band of merry hit-makers was just warming up.

Fried had managed to avoid a KO when he took damage in the third. By the end of the seventh, Alcantara and the Marlins were, for all intents and purposes, flat on the mat.

“We’re a big-swinging team,” Snitker had said during the Cincinnati series. “We slug.”

And that’s what they did. Yimi García replaced Alcantara on the mound with two on and one out in the seventh, and promptly gave up a game-tying single to Ozuna. Then he surrendered a three-run gopher to d’Arnaud. Ozzie Albies then reached, after which Swanson swatted Atlanta’s second home run of the frame. A 4-3 deficit had turned into a commanding 9-4 lead, and it was all over but the shouting.

García had come into the inning not having allowed a home run all year.

Five Atlanta relievers proceeded to seal the deal. Matt Joyce knocked in a Miami run with a pinch-hit single in the eighth, but it was too little too late. In a game that included 21 strikeouts — seven by a predictably stingy Braves bullpen that allowed just three baserunners over five innings — it was ultimately the Atlanta offense that carried the day. As they’re wont to do, Snitker’s club slugged.

Game 2 is tomorrow afternoon.