The Braves crushed the Marlins 9-4 Wednesday at Truist Park, showing no hangover from their tamer division-clinching celebration 24 hours ago. But attention centered on starter Max Fried, who left the game after one inning with an ankle injury.
Fried tweaked his left ankle while fielding Starling Marte’s bunt, which resulted in the first inning’s second out. He stayed in the game, allowing back-to-back homers and a double, before recording the final out to end his night.
The southpaw hadn’t allowed a homer this season – a run that spanned 55-2/3 innings (68-1/3 dating back to last year) – before Jesus Aguilar and Brian Anderson took him deep Wednesday right after he sustained the injury. Fried’s streak was the longest in the majors.
Fried was unavailable to the media following the game because he was undergoing testing away from the stadium.
“They’re checking him out,” manager Brian Snitker said. “He tweaked it a bit on that bunt. He was down in the dugout, and it was like, ‘I’ll give it a try.’ And I said, ‘If you don’t think you can go, we’re not going to screw around with anything like that.’ Because that’s all he needed to do was go out there and try to get by and hurt his arm or something. We’ll check him out tomorrow and go from there.”
That’s the book on Fried’s 2020 regular season. While the rotation around him collapsed, Fried assembled the best campaign of his career. He finished 7-0 with a 2.25 ERA and 50:19 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 11 starts (56 innings). When Mike Soroka was lost for the season due to an Achilles tear in his third outing, Fried assumed the ace mantle and never looked back.
When the Braves begin their postseason run exactly one week from Wednesday, Fried, if healthy, will be on the mound for Game 1. Snitker seemed optimistic that the team and player avoided what could’ve been a terrible development five days before the regular season concludes.
“I’m hoping everything is good,” Snitker said. “The preliminaries are good, but we’ll know more (later) tonight. He was walking around gingerly a little bit. We didn’t want to take any chances. … I think it will be fine. Tomorrow, we’ll see where he’s at and plan from there.”
Notes from Wednesday:
- The Braves' league-best offense will take pressure off their young starters in the postseason. This time, the offensive surge came in the fourth, when the Braves scored five runs with two outs.
Miami starter Sixto Sanchez lasted only three innings, allowing four runs, and was replaced by Josh A. Smith to begin the fourth. Smith retired two of the first three hitters he faced, with Ronald Acuna slipping a single in between a strikeout and flyout. The next four Braves reached base.
Marcell Ozuna singled. Ozzie Albies singled, scoring Acuna. Nick Markakis singled, scoring Ozuna. None were powerfully hit until Dansby Swanson belted a three-run homer to cap the scoring spree.
“We needed the offense to come through and they did,” Snitker said. “And they beat a pretty good pitcher (Sanchez), too. That kid is really good.”
- Swanson’s homer was the Braves' 99th of the season, which is only one behind the 2015 Braves' 162-game total. While that 67-win club was devoid of talent, for this team to nearly match that total in only 56 games is another small example of how far this organization has come since launching its rebuild.
- Swanson is well past his recent 1-for-30 skid. He has a hit in three-straight games, going 5-for-10 with two homers, a double and four RBIs in that time. He has two homers in his past 10 plate appearances after hitting the same number across his previous 20 games (93 plate appearances) this month.
- Right-hander Luke Jackson followed Fried, covering the next four innings. He allowed two runs on four hits. Grant Dayton, Jacob Webb and Shane Greene held the Marlins to one hit over the final four frames.
- The Braves are 6-3 against the Marlins this season and 35-12 against them since 2018. Their dominance over Miami has been critical during their National League East three-peat.
- With the Cubs' 2-1 loss to the Pirates, the Braves moved two games ahead of Chicago for the NL’s No. 2 seed. The seeding won’t make much of a difference, since almost all the postseason will take place in a bubble. There’s also such a cluster of teams at the bottom of the postseason bracket, the Braves likely won’t know their opponent until Sunday night, so it’s impossible to say which seed would provide a more favorable draw.
- The Braves are 18-8 at Truist Park this season, scoring over six runs per contest. Perhaps that bodes well for next week, when the Braves will have to defeat their first postseason opponent in two of three home games to advance to the traditional NLDS, which will be played in the Texas bubble.
- Ian Anderson makes his final start of the regular season Thursday, when the Braves will try to complete a four-game sweep of the NL East’s second-place team.
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