Neither Two Was Atlanta's

Two Atlanta clubs played at home tonight. Both of them finished with a two beside their name. Neither two was theirs.

At Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Orlando City won 3-2 and Atlanta United did not score. David Brekalo turned a ball into his own net in the seventh minute, and Tyrese Spicer did the same in the 97th, long after it could matter. Fifteen shots, two of them on target, 40.5 percent of the ball. Tito has the match, and the last paragraph of it is the one to read twice.

At Truist Park, Tampa Bay won 7-2 in front of 30,969. Atlanta had three hits. Drake Baldwin scored both runs himself — his own home run in the fourth, then on base in the sixth and home on a Matt Olson sacrifice fly. Reynaldo Lopez, on a major-league mound for the first time in 45 days, got fourteen outs on eighty pitches and gave back six earned runs. Ellis has what that does to October. Dex has what it did to his own morning.

Same shape twice: a scoreline that reads better than the night underneath it. What separates the two is the bill.

Atlanta United are on 22 points from 24 matches, fourteenth of fifteen in the East, nine points behind ninth-placed FC Cincinnati with ten matches to play. A night like this costs them nothing, because there is nothing left to spend. They are at Audi Field on Saturday and that will be true there too.

The Braves are 85-61 and lead the National League East by three. It was four this morning. Philadelphia beat Houston 11-7 and took a game of it back, and Philadelphia are at Truist Park on Friday for three. Atlanta finish with Tampa Bay first — Martin Perez against Nick Martinez on Thursday, then Chris Sale on Friday. Sixteen games left, three straight losses, in a ballpark where this team is 48-26.

The second National League seed and the bye that comes with it were still being played for while this filed. Los Angeles were in the early innings against Cincinnati, holding a game in hand on Atlanta, the gap 3.5 in the meantime. It will be 3.0 or 4.0 by breakfast, and anybody printing a settled number tonight is guessing.

One more thing. Atlanta United needed Orlando to score for them and lost anyway. The Braves needed one catcher to score for them and lost anyway. Only one of those two clubs still has something to lose.