Riley’s late homer gives Braves a Game 1 win over Phillies
Austin. Riley.
The Braves’ beleaguered third baseman, who struck out a franchise-record 201 times in 159 games during the regular season, hit a three-run home run in the eighth inning to give the Braves a 5-3 win over the Phillies in the first game of a National League Wild Card series at Truist Park.
Riley hit the first offering from Phillies closer Jhoan Duran 385 feet over the right-field wall. The homer, Riley’s sixth career playoff home run, came with two outs.
Braves closer Raisel Iglesias allowed a leadoff single in the ninth, but got a 6-4-3 double play.
The Braves can advance to the NL Division Series with a win at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Truist Park.
Braves starter Chris Sale began the seventh inning pitching with the lead for the first time all day. But a 2-1 slider grazed Bryan De La Cruz’s jersey, and a Bryson Stott single to right put runners at the corners and ended Sale’s day.
Didier Fuentes, making his postseason debut, got pinch hitter Justin Crawford to pop out to shallow center. But veteran catcher J.T. Realmuto played spoiler.
His two-out base hit went into the right field corner and Ronald Acuña Jr. misplayed the ball. De La Cruz scored. Stott scored. The Phillies took the lead going to the bottom of the seventh.
The Phillies had Duran pitch the bottom of the seventh and eighth. He retired the Braves in order in the seventh and, facing the heart of the Braves’ lineup in the eighth, allowed a two-out infield single to Michael Harris II and hit Ozzie Albies on the foot.
That gave the Braves life. And Riley played the hero.
In a 1-1 game in the sixth, with one out and Harris on first, Albies came to the plate to face Phillies right-handed reliever Alex McFarlane. Albies connected on a 1-1 fastball and drove it to deep right-center, where center fielder Derek Hill leaped and just missed making a sensational catch.
The ball fell to the dirt, allowing Harris to score and Albies to get to third for his first career postseason triple.
The Phillies delivered the first blow against Sale in the first inning with a two-out RBI double from Alec Bohm. Bohm tomahawked a 2-2 fastball up in the zone to deep center field that a leaping Harris couldn’t get to — the hit scored Kyle Schwarber, who had walked with one out, from first.
After Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo threw a nine-pitch, 1-2-3 inning, Mauricio Dubón started a rally by leading off the second inning with an RBI double into the corner in left field. He went to third on Harris’ sacrifice bunt before Albies walked.
A hard-to-believe, bad-luck moment came next. A 1-1, up-and-in fastball to Riley hit the knob of the bat and trickled back to Luzardo, who caught Dubón in a rundown between third and home. Dubón, dead to rights, at least had the awareness to stay alive long enough for Riley to reach and Albies to scamper to third.
It was left up to Mike Yastrzemski, who was previously 0-for-7 with two strikeouts against Luzardo and 0-for-13 in five playoff games with the Giants in 2021. The Braves’ designated hitter rolled an RBI single through the middle that tied the game at 1.
Sale, meanwhile, retired 11 of the next 12 (Trea Turner took a slider to the foot in the third) before Edmundo Sosa rolled a double into the right-field corner with two outs in the fifth. But Sale got out of that momentary jam with a strikeout — his seventh of the game at that point — of Realmuto.
Luzardo was lifted after five innings and 77 pitches (he had thrown four pitches during Sunday’s must-win game in Philadelphia). The lefty allowed just the one run and three hits while striking out six. He also walked one and hit two batters.
Sale was charged three runs after leaving with one out in the seventh. He fanned nine, walked one and hit two batters.