Major League Baseball

Inside the Braves' 'unbelievable' comeback against the Phillies

Updated Oct. 10, 2023 6:22 p.m. ET

ATLANTA — The slider did not go where Jeff Hoffman, or the city of Philadelphia, wanted it to go.

Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto asked for it down and away, exactly where Braves third baseman Austin Riley struggles against the pitch. Over the course of the regular season, Riley, one of the league's best right-handed power bats, saw 128 sliders down and away from right-handed pitching.

He collected just one hit.

Up a run, with two outs and a runner on third in the bottom of the eighth, the Phillies could afford to walk Riley and live to fight another day. After the game, Riley admitted that he was expecting a fastball from Hoffman, that he typically anticipates fastballs from relievers in big spots. Hoffman, a former top prospect who turned his career around in 2023 as a late-inning fireman, threw 294 sliders this year to right-handed hitters. He allowed three hits and just one home run.

The math added up, but the unseen pressures of playoff baseball proved more powerful. This time of year, the heightened stakes so often turn the expected into the chaotic. Had Hoffman executed the pitch, Riley would have either swung and likely missed, or laid off and taken his base. Both were good options for the Phillies.

Instead, Hoffman hung the slider. Riley made him pay.

The pitch caught the lower-middle part of the strike zone as Riley lunged his barrel down toward the spinning baseball, lifting it up and over the bullpen wall in right field.

An instant wave of sound. Fireworks into the night. Pandemonium. Madness. A crowd in total jubilation. The type of moment that makes October baseball good for your soul and bad for your heart. Braves win, 5-4.

"The pitch comes and it's normal speed," Riley told FOX Sports afterward, recounting the feeling of a season-altering swing. "But once you make contact it's slow. From home to first, everything slows down. But then you hit first, and all it speeds back up."

Upon reaching first base, the typically reserved Riley let out a full-throated roar as his teammates poured out over the dugout railing. There was pointing, gesturing and a tidal wave of "LET'S F---ING GO!"

Just two innings earlier, the 104-win Braves looked done and dusted, buried beneath an avalanche of fan complaints about the unfairness of MLB's playoff format. For six innings, Phillies ace Zack Wheeler made one of the best lineups in baseball history look like a blindfolded Little League team.

Eight of the first 11 Braves batters struck out. Nobody in a home uniform collected a hit until the sixth inning. There was guessing, flailing, head-hanging, bat slamming, head shaking; all the telltale signs of an offense being taken to task. Fourteen innings into the NLDS and the Phillies looked firmly in control, leading 4-0 midway through Monday and unfazed by the gravity of the stage or the magnitude of their opponent.

Atlanta starter Max Fried was shaky and the Phillies capitalized, scoring thrice in the first three frames. The Braves ace, who hadn't pitched since Sept. 21st, looked rusty, walking five batters for only the third time in his stellar career. A crowd-silencing, two-run shot from Realmuto in the third felt like a hammer blow.

But then the Braves finally scraped a run across in the sixth on an Ozzie Albies single that scored a galloping Ronald Acuña Jr. from first, this after Phillies shortstop Trea Turner lazily mishandled the throw from the outfield. An open door, an invitation, was all the Braves needed.

"Ronnie got the crowd back in it," Braves catcher Travis d'Arnaud said. "I think that was the biggest thing. Got the crowd back in it and got momentum back on our side."

D'Arnaud kept the party rolling an inning later, when he pounced on an elevated Wheeler slider for a two-run blast that cut Philadelphia's lead to 4-3. That swing from Atlanta's even-keeled catcher also chased Wheeler from the game, setting up the crucial Riley-Hoffman showdown an inning later.

"It was really emotional, especially the way we came back," d'Arnaud said. "That was one of my favorite postseason games ever."

But Riley's clutch smash wasn't the final chapter. After Bryce Harper walked to start the ninth against A.J. Minter, Braves skipper Brian Snitker brought in closer Raisel Iglesias to lock it down. With one out and Harper still on first, Iglesias goosed a fastball to Nick Castellanos, who cracked the snot out of it.

Enter Braves center fielder Michael Harris II, who jetted straight back toward the warning track, leapt into the wall and came down with a sensational grab. By this point, Harper had already rounded second base. Harris II spun around, heaved the ball toward the infield, where an alert Riley scooped up an overthrow and tossed to first to double off Harper. Three outs. Ballgame.

"[Harper] thought the ball was clearly over [Harris'] head," Phillies manager Rob Thomson explained. "He didn't think he was going to catch it. And Harris made a heck of a play. Unbelievable. He tried to get back, and he slipped."

While Riley's blast flipped the score, Harris' outrageous snag and Harper's consequent blunder was the talk of Atlanta's locker room after the game. Kevin Pillar's young son, sporting a custom "Money Mike" headband, waddled over to his favorite center fielder for a fist bump. Third-string catcher Chadwick Tromp strutted by Harris' locker offering a congratulatory "Mike is him!" All while Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia cackled emphatically about Harper's misfortune, bellowing "ha-ha, atta-boy, Harper!" repeatedly as reporters circled the room.

One could only imagine the energy in the road locker room was decidedly less celebratory. The Phillies journey home with a split, a positive outcome all things considered, but they will look back on this game with heavy eyes. It will stick in their collective craw. They left 11 runners on base, wasting multiple opportunities to grab hold of the game, and with it, the series.

This matchup was ballyhooed as a showdown between the National League's two biggest powers, a five-game heavyweight NLDS for the ages. But through 14 innings the Braves were little more than a punching bag. Then, Acuña, d'Arnaud and Riley pulled their club off the mat.

The fight is far from over.

Jake Mintz, the louder half of @CespedesBBQ is a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He played college baseball, poorly at first, then very well, very briefly. Jake lives in New York City where he coaches Little League and rides his bike, sometimes at the same time. Follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.