CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES ROUNDUP
NLCS Game 1 Braves 5, Dodgers 1
ARLINGTON, Texas – Atlanta Braves fans were still doing tomahawk-chop chants as they filed out of the stadium, real people who replaced the cardboard cutouts players got so accustomed to this season.
One game, but a big boost for the Braves in their first National League Championship Series since 2001.
Austin Riley led off the ninth inning with a tiebreaking homer that sparked a four-run rally Monday night for a 5-1 win over Los Angeles in the first major league game this season with fans allowed to attend.
“It was awesome – fun to play in front of fans again,” Braves slugger Freddie Freeman said. “11,000 people, really felt like 50,000 to us because we haven’t had any all year.”
Riley greeted reliever Blake Treinen with a 448foot drive to left-center, giving Atlanta a 2-1 lead and generating a familiar noise in the ballpark that only got louder.
“I didn’t feel my legs when I was running around the bases, so it was a good feeling,” said the 23-yearold Riley, left off the postseason roster last year. And the Braves weren’t done.
Ronald Acuña Jr. followed with a double and scored on a single by Marcell Ozuna that chased Treinen. Ozzie Albies added a two-run homer off Jake McGee.
“It’s what these guys do. I’ve said we’re like an NBA game, you don’t want to leave because a lot of things don’t happen until the last third,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “These guys never quit, they keep grinding at-bats and doing their thing, and it’s a pretty neat trait for a ballclub to have.”
Game 2 in the best-of-seven series is Tuesday, with Atlanta rookie Ian Anderson set to face three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw.
Riley became the youngest player with a go-ahead homer in the ninth inning of a postseason game or later since Braves star Chipper Jones in 1995.
“That’s a pretty good 9-hole hitter we’ve got,” Freeman said. “We believe in every single guy, and Austin was the guy tonight.”
In a matchup of teams that ranked 1-2 in the majors for runs and homers, and in the first NLCS opener since 2007 with both teams undefeated in the postseason, the Braves delivered another impressive pitching performance even without a shutout.
Max Fried struck out nine over six sharp innings, Will Smith worked a perfect eighth for the win and Mark Melancon closed it out. Atlanta, which threw four shutouts in its first five playoff games against Cincinnati and Miami, has allowed a total of six runs while going 6-0 this postseason.
ALCS Game 2 Rays 4, Astros 2
SAN DIEGO – Back in the ballpark where he started his big league career, Manuel Margot of the Tampa Bay Rays had a breakout game in the AL Championship Series with a three-run home run and a spectacular catch while tumbling over a wall in right field.
Asked which was bigger in the victory against the Houston Astros, Margot said through a translator: “Definitely the home run. The home run didn’t hurt.”
The home run was huge, for sure, because it helped the Rays get halfway to the World Series with a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series.
But they’ll be talking about the catch for a long time. With two outs in the second and runners on second and third, Margot tracked George Springer’s long foul ball to right field while shielding his face from the sun. He caught it as he tumbled over a padded railing atop a wall and landed on a walkway near the seats down the line at Petco Park.
Margot popped up, smiled and held up his glove with the ball in it after a 102-foot sprint.
Margot was shaken up a little but stayed in the game.
“Approaching it you don’t really realize how high it is but it gets a little lower once you go over the wall, so once I actually started to flip and realized it was a little bit further of a drop, that’s when I got a little scared,” Margot said.
Teams with 2-0 leads have won 72 of 85 best-of-7 series.