Sunday's Braves Report: Braves lose game, chance at home-field; Gausman interview, notes
Atlanta goes into the postseason with some quiet bats, having scored three or fewer runs in five of its final seven regular-season games.
And that included a 3-1 loss to Philadelphia in the regular-season finale.
The Braves will open the playoffs on Thursday at Colorado or the L.A. Dodgers, who will have a playoff on Monday at Dodger Stadium to determine the N.L. West champ. The loser of that game is the road team in the wild card game.
LA beat San Francisco 15-0 and Colorado topped Washington 12-0. The Braves needed to win Sunday and have both lose to get home-field advantage
Kevin Gausman gave the Braves a good start, with three runs in five innings. But Atlanta managed just four hits, to go with two errors to lose four of the last six games.
The good news was the bullpen, which gave up one hit in the final three innings.
Gausman Q&A, postseason pitching, and more
All-stars played like all-stars
From beat writers Gabe Burns/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mark Bowman/MLB.com, and David O’Brien/The Athletic on Twitter (and others when notable)
Markakis will be 5th #Braves player to start all 162 since NL went to 162-game sked in 1962, joining Felix Milan (1969), Andruw Jones (1999), Jeff Francoeur (2006 & 2007) and Freddie Freeman (2014). Markakis & S.D.'s Freddy Galvis are only NL players to start every game in '18./DOB
Snit says Swanson felt some discomfort while taking some dry swings yesterday. He’ll be further evaluated today. A decision might not come until Wednesday/MB
Acuña has team-high 26 homers and would be first rookie to lead #Braves in homers since Chuck Workman led the 1943 Boston Braves with 10 (entire team had 39 that season)/DOB
Gausman allowed two first-inning runs in what is his first start since Sept. 20. If he starts Game 2, he'd be on regular rest. If he goes in Game 3, he'd have two extra days of rest. He entered today with a 5.14 ERA in the 5 starts made w/ more than 1 extra day of rest./MB
Snitker when asked if he'd try to get catcher Rivera in game today: "We’re going to try to win the game. If the other two teams lose and we win, we don’t have to go anywhere until (next weekend). I think that would be a really good thing."/DOB
Welp, Dodgers are pounding the Giants 12-0 and Rockies are crushing the Nats 7-0. #Braves are gonna open division series on road and not find out where until Monday night after an L.A.-Colorado playoff game to determine West champion./DOB