THREE HOMERS SEND BRAVES PAST PHILLIES, INTO NLDS MATCHUP WITH DODGERS
ATLANTA — Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson homered and six Braves pitchers stifled the Philadelphia Phillies’ offense, allowing Atlanta to roll to a 6-2 victory in the decisive third game of a National League wild-card series Thursday evening.
The Braves scored all the runs they needed on Harris’ three-run first-inning homer off Aaron Nola (0-1), winning their first winner-take-all postseason game since Game 7 of the 1996 NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
It also snapped Atlanta’s six-game losing streak in elimination games that dated back to the 2018 NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Atlanta will face the Dodgers in a best-of-five NLDS starting on Saturday in Los Angeles.
“I told our guys, man, all year long when the stakes have been the highest, when the challenges have been the toughest, we’ve been at our absolute best,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “So it doesn’t surprise me that we played the way we did tonight.”
The Phillies’ losing streak in winner-take-all games was extended to four games, with their only such victory coming in the 1980 NLCS. The loss also snaps Philadelphia’s four-year streak of reaching at least the NLDS round.
Ray Kerr got the start for Atlanta as an opener, delivering 3 1/3 scoreless innings of one-hit work in his postseason debut. Grant Holmes (1-0) followed with his own postseason debut, giving up one run on two hits over two innings.
Robert Suarez, Didier Fuentes, Dylan Dodd and Game 1 starter Chris Sale combined to allow one run on three hits over the final 3 2/3 innings.
For Sale, who threw 6 1/3 innings on Tuesday, it was his first relief appearance since he closed out the 2018 World Series for the Boston Red Sox, aside from a bulk-relief appearance in 2025 during Charlie Morton’s Atlanta sendoff.
Sale struck out Bryce Harper to end the eighth, then worked a scoreless ninth.
“What a warrior, man. This guy — I’ve run out of superlatives for Chris Sale,” Weiss said. “Been talking about him all year. He’s one of the best I’ve ever been around. When you take everything into consideration, teammate, competitor, performer, work ethic, all those things, he’s as good as I’ve ever been around.”
The Braves scored first for the first time in the series when Harris lined a 2-0 sinker just over the right field fence after walks by Ronald Acuna Jr. and Olson, staking Atlanta to a 3-0 lead in the first.
“Obviously had to come through in this situation,” Harris said. “Runners on early on in the game, he got behind in the count, couldn’t really find the zone. Just found one pitch to put my best swing on and hopefully we got some runs out of it, and we did.”
Albies tacked on in the fourth when he smashed a 419-foot two-run homer to right off Zach Wheeler, extending the lead to 5-0.
The Phillies, after getting nothing out of a two-on, no-out scenario in the fifth, got onto the board in the sixth on Alec Bohm’s RBI groundout after Kyle Schwarber singled and Harper doubled.
Atlanta got the run back in the seventh on Olson’s solo homer.
Philadelphia’s Derek Hill hit a leadoff triple in the eighth, and Trea Turner’s sacrifice fly brought him home.
Both teams finished with six hits, but the Phillies went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
“We weren’t able to get anything going, and anytime we did, we weren’t able to extend it,” Phillies manager Don Mattingly lamented.
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