Phillies bullpen shutout Braves in game one, trash thrown by fans

Atlanta Braves Security tries to remove trash thrown by fans in the 8th inning of the NLDS Game 1 after a catchers interference call wasn’t overturned in favor of the Braves. Photo Courtesy o UPI.

The Phillies went into Atlanta and accomplished a feat no other team was able to this season; shutout the Braves at home. Philadelphia went on to win 3-0 with seven pitchers reaching the mound.

Traveling Phillies fans were few and far between at Truist Park, but they were sure to stick out like a sore thumb when Braves fans in left field started hurling half dranken beers toward their own team. Phillies shortstop Trea Turner scored by advancing from third base on a catchers inference call with two outs in the 8th, and after a challenge confirmed the call, boos rung across and trash flung across the stadium.

Tensions mounted just before this in Atlanta’s dugout when they pulled their ace Spencer Strider, who had thrown eight Ks and allowed just a single earned run through 94 pitches.

Atlanta left seven men on base and went 0-5 with runners in scoring position. After tying the MLB record of team home runs in a single season, the six day rest before the start of the NLDS proved fatal for the hottest offense in baseball.

Feeling like the movie Groundhog Day, just a year prior the Phillies had won in Atlanta in game one of the NLDS with Ranger Suarez on the mound. This time around he went 3.2 innings, recording four Ks and allowing just one hit, Suarez allowed the Philadelphia bullpen to show different looks through the next six innings.

Bryce Harper would start off the scoring for Philadelphia in the fourth inning, as he advanced home on a Bryson Stott single. Harper would hover at third, and Stott intentionally started a rundown between the first two bags to get Striders attention away from Harper; allowing him enough time to reach home and Stott to reach second.

Harper wouldn’t be finished there, as he went 2-2 on the night with two walks, he’d hit a solo shot line drive that found it’s way over the right field wall in the sixth inning.

“Strider, man, he’s one of the best in the game,” Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper said. “You know he’s going to come at you and throw his best at you. So just trying to get a pitch over and was able to get the slider up and do some damage.”

The story of the game, best explained by Jomboy and his lip reading of the situation, was a catchers interference against Atlanta on a two out bases loaded foul ball from Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto in the eighth inning. There was much debate about this because on video you aren’t able to see the contact that is made with his bat, but you are able to hear a noise from the twine of Braves catcher Sean Murphy’s glove hitting the bat before the ball. That and some deductive reasoning from the immediate reactions from the two catchers standing at the plate, it was obvious there was some type of contact.

“I didn’t feel it, but I heard it,” Murphy said to reporters after the game.

The Braves look to even the series at one game apiece on Monday at Trusit Park, first pitch will be at 5:07pm.