Atlanta Braves' Pitching Roller Coaster
Because of the impending power outage in the Evergreen
area in 2019, the Evergreen Valley College campus was closed for two days. The closure allowed me to watch Game 5 of the NLDS on TV between the Atlanta Braves
and the St. Louis Cardinals. In the first inning of that game, the Braves allowed a then playoff record ten runs.
They allowed three more runs in the next two innings for a total of thirteen runs over the first three innings.
In the final six innings of that game, they allowed zero runs. However, the thirteen runs were too much to overcome and the Braves' season ended. The following
postseason (2020), the Braves' pitching picked up from where they left off the previous year. In the first 64 innings of the 2020 postseason, they allowed
six runs. Those 64 innings started with a
13-inning 1-0 duel against the
Cincinnati Reds.
The incredible 70-inning postseason stretch (6 innings in 2019, 64 innings in 2020) for the Braves pitchers ended when the Los Angeles Dodgers scored seven runs in
the final three innings of Game 2 of the 2020 NLCS. The momentum carried into Game 3, when they scored eleven runs in the first inning. That broke the record set by the
Cardinals during the aforementioned power outage. The Dodgers tacked on four more runs in the next two innings for
a total of fifteen runs in the first three innings. To summarize the Braves' up-and-down crazy
79-inning stretch:
- First 3 innings of Game 5 of 2019 NLDS: 13 runs, 11 earned (33.00 ERA)
- Next 70 postseason innings: 6 runs (0.771 ERA)
- Final 3 innings of Game 2 of 2020 NLCS: 7 runs (21.00 ERA)
- First 3 innings of Game 3 of 2020 NLCS: 15 runs (45.00 ERA)
The Braves' historically great postseason pitching was
sandwiched between historically bad postseason pitching. In the final
four games of the 2020 NLCS, Braves' pitching was neither great nor bad. It was average: they allowed 16 runs (4.00 ERA).