ATLANTA -- Instead of talking about his velocity decrease or how his rough outing could have led the Braves to just their fifth 1-9 record in franchise history, Chris Sale could smile and talk about how Sean Murphy's bespectacled return keyed an energizing 7-5 comeback win over the Phillies on Tuesday night at Truist Park.
“Winning fixes everything really,” Sale said. “We know how we started the season. It’s been not great, right? This game was about a lot of things we did right, which is fun.”
Murphy hit a three-run homer in his first plate appearance of the season and damaged Zack Wheeler again with a RBI single in a game-tying, two-run sixth. Austin Riley halted his struggles with a go-ahead RBI double in the seventh and Jarred Kelenic reached safely in each of his four plate appearances before making a diving catch in the ninth.
Even veteran shortstop Orlando Arcia, who recently lost playing time to Nick Allen, got into the act with an eight-pitch walk ahead of Michael Harris’ game-tying sacrifice fly. And a still-suspect bullpen held the Phillies hitless and scoreless over the final 4 1/3 innings.
So, yeah that was fun, especially for a manager who has seen plenty go wrong during the season’s first couple weeks.
“We did need that,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “That’s an understatement. It was good to play a game like that.”
Here were the game’s top developments:
Murphy’s back
Top prospect Drake Baldwin has been the new shiny toy who drew plenty of attention as he spent the season’s first nine games as Atlanta’s primary catcher. But it didn’t take Murphy long to prove he intends to get back to where he was from 2021-23, when he and the Phillies’ J.T. Realmuto led all MLB catchers with a 13.4 fWAR.
When Murphy hit .193 with a .636 OPS last year, the assumption was he never got back on track after missing two months with a strained oblique suffered on Opening Day. But maybe his vision played a part.
An astigmatism was detected during a recent vision check. He didn’t like contacts, so he switched to the sports glasses he was wearing when his first swing of the year resulted in him taking Wheeler’s 1-0 sweeper over the left-field wall. This was Murphy’s first plate appearance in a big league setting since Feb. 28, when his left rib was cracked in a Grapefruit League game against the Marlins.
Murphy homered in his first rehab game with Triple-A Gwinnett both of the past two years. So, now that he homered in this season debut?
“Everybody talk to me tomorrow like it’s my first game,” Murphy said with a smirk. “We’re going to try to do that again.”
Relief for Riley
Riley got a gift when his routine fly ball fell between first-time outfielder Edmundo Sosa and center fielder Johan Rojas in the second inning. Had the ball been caught, Wheeler would have escaped the three-run frame unscathed.
But maybe that was the luck Riley needed after entering the day 5-for-35 with two extra-base hits and 14 strikeouts. He added two more to that K total on Tuesday. But he also got a confidence boost when he scored Marcell Ozuna from second with one out in the seventh. The opposite-field double gave the Braves a lead they didn’t relinquish.
“You hope something like that relaxes him a little bit,” Snitker said. “He hit that right where he lives. That’s kind of his power alley there. When he’s going good, that’s where he hits the ball.”
Sale’s velo
Sale surrendered nine hits and five runs over just 4 2/3 innings. Most of the damage was done by Kyle Schwarber, who singled in the first, tripled in the third and hit a Statcast-projected 462-foot homer in the fifth. The solo shot was the longest home run ever surrendered by the 2024 National League Cy Young Award winner.
Sale’s four-seam fastball accounted for just seven of the 23 pitches he threw after the third inning. His heater touched 97.3 mph in the first inning, but didn’t get above 93.4 mph the rest of the night. The four-seamer averaged 92.7 mph. This same pitch averaged 94.9 mph in 2024.
The good news is it seems to be a mechanical issue. His arm angle dropped from 11 degrees in 2024 to seven degrees in his first two starts of the season.
“It just hasn’t clicked yet,” Sale said. “It’s frustrating obviously. We won this game, but I still know I’m going to be staring at the ceiling until about three in the morning. I’ve got some days to figure it out."