Having faced Tanner Scott multiple times before Tuesday, Albies was ready for the moment.
Ozzie Albies has been doing this long enough that a game-winning hit against the Dodgers probably shouldn’t feel all that unusual. Tuesday night was different.
With two outs in the eighth inning and the Atlanta Braves needing one more hit to break a 3-3 tie, Albies stepped in against Tanner Scott knowing exactly what Atlanta needed. He got ahead 2-0 and lined a slider into left-center for a single to score Matt Olson.
For Albies, the situation brought him back to something much simpler.
“It’s like playing Little League baseball in the backyard,” Albies said postgame, via Braves Vision. “You know what I mean? Come up right there. I said, all I got to do is put the ball in play.”
That was essentially the assignment. Olson had doubled to start the inning, Mauricio Dubón had moved him to third with a ground ball, and Albies didn’t need to do anything spectacular. He just needed to get something into the outfield.
Albies had a pretty good idea of what Scott might throw, too.
“I was expecting him to go offspeed,” Albies said. “I know he has a good fastball, but sometimes the game tells you, hey, you gotta give something up to get what you want, and then that’s what I did.”
The hit gave Atlanta a 4-3 lead, but it was the next inning that made the win particularly important.
Raisel Iglesias entered the ninth with the Braves holding a one-run advantage against the top of a Dodgers lineup that had already caused plenty of problems throughout the night. Shohei Ohtani immediately tripled, putting the tying run 90 feet away.
Somehow, Iglesias kept him there.
That part of the game stood out to Albies because a leadoff triple usually feels like a near-automatic run.
“When you get a leadoff triple like that, 90 percent of the time the run will score,” Albies said. “For us to hold him at third — and get the W — was really, really huge for us tonight.”
Braves manager Walt Weiss agreed that the save was about as difficult as it gets. During his postgame presser on Braves Vision, he noted the challenge Iglesias faced against the top of such an elite lineup.
That kind of win probably carries more weight for Atlanta than the standings alone suggest.
The Braves had lost five of their first six games on their recent road trip and had gone 6-10 since their eight-game winning streak ended Aug. 7 They entered Tuesday averaging just 2.9 runs per game during that stretch.
Then they scored four against the defending champions and held on when the Dodgers had one final chance.
Weiss has been consistent about his belief in the clubhouse through the difficult stretch, telling reporters that he has “never” doubted the room.
“It’s a good group,” Weiss said, via Braves Vision. “The mentality, the makeup of the room is really good.”
That belief was tested Tuesday. The Braves answered it with a win.
And for Albies, something about the way it happened felt fitting. There was no need to overcomplicate the eighth inning. He stuck to his intuition, and it didn't fail him.
For a Braves team still facing a difficult stretch of games, that may be exactly the mentality Atlanta needs.
