Widely doubted, Walt Weiss’ pitching maneuver works out sublimely for Braves

LOS ANGELES — As it turned out, Walt Weiss does, in fact, know how to manage a baseball team.

He was pilloried near and far for electing to save ace Chris Sale for Game 3 of the National League Division Series against the Dodgers rather than send him to the mound for Sunday’s Game 2.

His decision to have Sale close out Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series and throw 21 pitches was cast as excessive.

But Weiss stood at the rail of the first-base dugout for nine innings at Dodger Stadium and watched his plan work out to near perfection in the Braves’ 3-2 win that evened the best-of-five series at one game apiece.

Walt Weiss: Not just a pretty face.

“We weren’t pushing a ton of runs across, but we got enough,” first baseman Matt Olson said. “Got to ’em in the first a little bit, Mike (Harris II) with that big hit late, and the bullpen pitched their (butt) off.”

Consider what just happened here. The Braves arrived in Los Angeles on Friday after outlasting Philadelphia in an exhausting three-game NL Wild Card Series.

The bullpen’s tongues were hanging out. Their NLDS opponent was more explosive, deeper, was fully rested, playing at home and ready to unleash the mother of all starting rotations.

Further, the Braves didn’t know if Sale would be able to start Game 2 after his relief appearance to nail down the wild-card clincher Thursday.

Potentially (and actually) facing two bullpen games, the Dodgers were positioned to take a 2-0 lead and go to Atlanta to send the Braves into the offseason.

Weiss managed Saturday’s Game 1 knowing he held a losing hand and was willing to not use his top bullpen arms to chase a win — even if it meant losing the all-important series opener — in order to have them available for Game 2.

And then he decided Sunday to hold off on Sale for Game 2, choosing to give him two more days of rest to have him at full strength for Game 3 rather than at 80% for Game 2.

Consider this: Sale had started only two games on four days’ rest all season, and that was at the start of the season and by necessity. Not inconsequentially, Sale, who has had a history of injuries, is healthy.

“Look, you want to win every game, obviously,” Weiss said afterward. “We also have to think about how to win a series. So you have to take all those things into consideration.”

Weiss was managing to win a five-game series, not solely Game 2, however important it may have been. Even if the Braves had lost Sunday, they still had their two best pitchers going in to Games 3 and 4, at home on full rest.

Although teams that fall behind 0-2 rarely come back, most of those teams have already shot their ace.

The Braves’ situation is quite different.

Still, if the Dodgers tore into the Braves bullpen, it had the potential to blow up in Weiss’ face — He should have pitched Sale. Now they’re down 0-2!

But that viewpoint didn’t take into consideration Weiss’ belief in his top bullpen arms, now rested after being held out of Game 1, to successfully navigate 27 outs.

Ask the Dodgers how that plan played out.

“I think it showed that they’re going to use any pitcher, try to get every matchup possible,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

The Braves’ six-man tag team of Ray Kerr, Grant Holmes, Dylan Lee, Robert Suárez, Didier Fuentes and Raisel Iglesias held the kajillion-dollar Dodgers lineup to six hits, three walks and two runs with nine strikeouts. Two of the six were home runs — but they were solo shots.

Together, they got to 27 outs with the lead. Sale could have hardly done any better.

“We didn’t need many hits (Sunday) to have a different result, and we just couldn’t get it,” Roberts said.

This game, particularly the performances of Kerr (going the first 2⅔ innings as an opener without allowing a run), Suárez (inheriting two runners on and none out and escaping without allowing a run) and Fuentes (retiring 11 consecutive Dodgers), will have its place in team lore.

“He’s, what, 21, 22?” Kerr asked of the 21-year-old Fuentes. “He’s doing that at that age? He’s amazing.”

And now, who has the edge?

The team that just lost home-field advantage, has spent the two starters deemed most likely to beat the Braves, only to earn a 1-1 split and is likely feeling pressure?

Or the team that gained home-field advantage and is now sending out its top two starters on full rest — the indomitable Sale and the fairly indomitable (of late) Tyler Mahle — to the mound in front of what will surely be fully charged Truist Park crowds?