Major League Baseball

World Series 2021: Atlanta Braves up 3-1 thanks to contributions from across the roster

Updated Oct. 31, 2021 12:24 p.m. ET

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

ATLANTA — Cristian Javier’s first mistake was in judgment.

Seeking to preserve a one-run, seventh-inning lead in Game 4 of this World Series, the Houston Astros' reliever shook off trusted catcher Martín Maldonado’s call for a slider to finish off the struggling hometown kid, Dansby Swanson.

Swanson instead saw a fastball and swatted an opposite-field homer.

Javier’s second mistake was in execution. Down in the count against pinch-hitting slugger Jorge Soler, he heeded Maldonado’s suggestion but missed his target and hung a slider. Soler, too, clubbed a homer. For the first time in World Series history, the two men at the bottom of a lineup combined on back-to-back homers.

"I think I went more nuts for his than I did for my own," Swanson said, and the videotape verifies his claim.

Soler golfed it over the shortest fence in the stadium, inches out of the reach of Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez. As the crowd erupted, Atlanta Braves lead cheerleader Guillermo Heredia started running. Freddie Freeman leaped out of the dugout and raised his arms. Swanson followed him, shouting and punching the air.

The two home runs held, and after a 3-2 victory Saturday at Truist Park, the Braves are one win from a championship. They will have three cracks at it — if they need them — including one in front of their fans.

"What a great time of year," Atlanta manager Brian Snitker said early Sunday morning. "For the city, the Braves country, to experience all this, for our players to experience it, it's a win-win situation."

Without a starting pitcher for the next two nights, Snitker carried what looked like a losing hand into Saturday’s game. But he made all the right gambles.

To ease the burden the Braves placed on a young man who has hardly pitched at this level, let alone in the World Series, Snitker didn't tell left-handed reliever Dylan Lee that he would start until Saturday afternoon. Because he hadn’t started a game since 2017, in A-ball, Snitker also told Lee he could come out of the bullpen like usual. So he did, running in as his teammates took their positions in the field.

The team could protect him only so long. Jose Altuve swung at Lee’s first pitch, grounded it to shortstop and reached base when Swanson’s throw carried Freeman away from first base. Lee followed by walking Michael Brantley as Kyle Wright started to warm behind him. After a strikeout, Lee issued another walk, and Snitker came to replace him with Wright.

"I know that I’m a reliever now," Lee said afterward.

Then Wright, until now a 2017 draft bust, looked like some starter. He tussled with Carlos Correa, who fought off a 3-2 fastball, tapping it to third base and scoring a run. That was all the Astros managed because Wright pumped a high fastball past Kyle Tucker to end the inning.

Wright soon found more success. He allowed only one run of his own, on an Altuve homer, over 4 2/3 innings, a remarkable outing against baseball’s best offense.

"Kyle was the reason we won tonight," Snitker said.

Meanwhile, Zack Greinke’s grunting ways reached new extremes. To put away Wright in the top of the third inning, the Astros’ starter nearly screamed as he released a slider. He was nowhere near perfect, but he escaped every jam he encountered, abetted by adept infield work from Altuve and Correa.

Dusty Baker offered Greinke hearty congratulations after the fourth inning, grinning and patting his left shoulder in praise. Greinke even let loose a little smile. It looked like he’d help Houston even this series.

The Braves did not advance a runner to second base until Eddie Rosario doubled with one out in the sixth. Freeman followed with a walk, and against a new pitcher, Phil Maton, Austin Riley laced a single into left, halving Houston’s lead.

Playing left field because of National League rules, Alvarez overshot the cut-off man. That allowed Freeman to take third and Riley second, but a Travis d’Arnaud strikeout meant it didn’t cost the Astros.

Another game looms Sunday, of course, but that did not stop Snitker, who chased the win to a greater degree than Baker had Friday. For the top of the seventh, he brought in his top setup man, Tyler Matzek, for the second consecutive night. Luke Jackson and Will Smith, too, followed with scoreless innings, though Jackson owed significant credit to Rosario for somehow snagging an Altuve drive to the wall while on the run.

"Wow," Rosario said of his own effort. "What a catch." According to Statcast data, balls hit at that velocity and angle project to be a home run in 26 of 30 MLB stadiums.

If Snitker calls on them Sunday, Matzek, Jackson and Smith would all be pitching for the third time in three days. Matzek, in particular, has pitched so much this postseason that the Truist Park video board reported his 2021 playoff statistics as the marks for his postseason career.

The fourth and final member of Snitker’s first circle of trust, A.J. Minter, did get to rest, and the manager will surely rely on him for multiple innings Sunday.

As tends to happen when teams are one win away, the Braves are receiving contributions from across their roster. Wright was the last man to make the roster, in fact. Soler began Saturday on the bench. Swanson, the Atlanta-area native, has been hitting eighth or ninth. But he, like so many teammates, came alive when he was needed.

"The kid likes that moment, I know that," Snitker said. "He has for as long as he has been here."

Swanson brought that reputation to the Braves from his Vanderbilt days, but the truth is he had been having an awful postseason. He said he realized after Game 3 that he had not been competing hard enough. After consultation with his girlfriend, soccer star Mallory Pugh, after she returned from a Friday match in Orlando, he tried to turn that up for Game 4.

It seems he was successful.

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and L.A. Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.