They Didn't Inherit That

Atlanta won a winner-take-all game with six hits.

Six. Three of them left the yard. That was the whole offense.

Michael Harris II in the first, three runs. Ozzie Albies in the fourth, two. Matt Olson in the seventh, one. Add them up and you get six, which is also the final run total, because Atlanta's other three hits did nothing at all.

And I'm the guy who told you this morning that Atlanta had backed into primetime — that it inherited the stage from three clubs that finished their business faster. I stand by that arithmetic. I was wrong about what it meant.

Receipt first, because that's the deal I make with you.

I had Atlanta at 60% to win this round on Tuesday morning. I raised it to 78% after Game 1. I cut it to 58% after Game 2, and I held it there this morning. Atlanta won. The number was right in direction and honest about the doubt, and I'll take that over a 90% I hadn't earned.

Here's what I didn't see coming.

Walt Weiss opened an elimination game with Ray Kerr. Nine appearances all season. Nine. Then he brought Grant Holmes — a man who threw 151.2 innings as a starter this year — out of the bullpen behind him. Holmes is the winning pitcher in a game he didn't start.

Then, with it still a four-run game in the eighth, Weiss went and got Chris Sale. Who started Tuesday. Who threw ninety-five pitches doing it. Sale struck out three in an inning and a third and that was the season, for Philadelphia.

Weiss had two arms that hadn't thrown a pitch all series sitting right there. Brent Suter. Victor Mederos. He walked past both of them to use his best starter as a reliever on two days' rest.

That's not a bullpen decision. That's a statement about how long Weiss thinks this is going to last.

Look at the other dugout, because it's the same movie in a different uniform. Aaron Nola got five outs and took the loss. Don Mattingly had Zack Wheeler throw four innings in relief. Both clubs emptied the drawer on the same night.

Only one of them hit a home run.

Philadelphia hit zero, by the way. The team that hit three in the game it won on Wednesday hit none in the game that ended its year. Two runs, on a groundout and a sacrifice fly. That's what Atlanta's six hits were good enough to beat.

Now the part that should bother you if you're wearing red.

Atlanta is at Dodger Stadium on Saturday at four o'clock Eastern, against a club that won a hundred games, with one day in between. Sale has thrown a hundred and sixteen pitches since Tuesday afternoon. Didier Fuentes has pitched three days running. The drawer Weiss emptied tonight does not refill by Saturday.

I'm not putting a number on that series. The one I was carrying just got settled, and a decided question doesn't take a percentage.

So here's what I'll put up instead. Burning Sale tonight was the right call, and I will defend it in writing even if Atlanta loses on Saturday because of it. You don't reach October and then hold your best pitcher back for a round you haven't qualified for. Ellis will hand you the innings math on this and he'll be more careful with it than I'm being — he's right to be, that's his job and he's good at it. I still think the aggressive read is the correct one.

Atlanta didn't inherit tonight. It walked onto a stage somebody else's early exit handed it and won the only game in the sport, with six hits, a reliever who had pitched nine times all year, and an ace working the eighth inning.

Tell me that's backing in.