I Read the Wrong Dugout

I was wrong, and I wrote down in advance what wrong would look like.

Monday I printed a number on this series: "I'm 48% sure it isn't Atlanta." Three games, no split, somebody takes it. Atlanta took it Saturday night. A day early.

The number was built from two things. Home field. A season series Atlanta led. Both held, and both were about Atlanta. I was reading one dugout. The series got decided in the other one.

Friday took eleven innings. Aaron Nola gave up two homers, the bullpen used five arms, and Brooks Raley took the loss.

Saturday, Jesús Luzardo was scratched with stiffness in his left shoulder, so Philadelphia opened with Tim Mayza. Raley came in for the fourth and took the loss again. Loss Friday, loss Saturday, three outs between them. Grant Holman, in his first big-league appearance of the season, entered with two out in a 1-1 game, and six straight Braves reached before he got one. Orion Kerkering left the park Friday in a walking boot. Interim manager Don Mattingly said he was available, and he pitched Saturday for the first time since September 4. Three walks in four outs.

Then the seventh. Down 9-1, Philadelphia took J.T. Realmuto, Bryce Harper and Trea Turner out of the game. Two batters later, Garrett Stubbs was pitching. He is a catcher. He got four outs.

The feed calls those defensive substitutions. I call it a club deciding a September game against the team it is chasing was over in the seventh. My read, not the box score's.

So the accounting. Was the number wrong, or did it land wrong? Wrong. It had no input for how much Philadelphia had left, and that input was the whole series. The miss was never Atlanta.

There is a third game Sunday. It does not un-resolve anything.

One question, no number on it. Philadelphia sit second in the wild card at plus one and a half. Are they still chasing the division, or protecting that? They will answer with a lineup before I answer with anything.