Close doesn’t count in baseball. Atlanta, again, gritted one out against the Washington Nationals, once the hottest team in baseball, winning 5-4 Saturday night.
It was the third straight win in the series for the Braves (89-54), who have all but clinched the NL East, with the Nats (78-63), losers of five of their last six, now having to think about maintaining their place in the NL wild-card race.
The Nats are two games up on the Chicago Cubs for home field for the NL wild-card game, and three and a half up on Arizona.
As has been the case of late for Washington, it was trouble getting to the opposing starting pitcher, tonight, Julio Teheran (10-8, 3.31 ERA), who gave up a run on three hits in six innings of work, striking out eight and walking one.
A two-run eighth-inning double by Juan Soto made things interesting, getting the Nats to 5-4.
Sean Doolittle pitched a perfect bottom of the eighth, striking out two, to get the game to the ninth.
Mark Melancon closed out things for the Braves with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Story by Chris Graham
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