Atlanta Moves On: 3 Takeaways From Braves’ Wild Card Win Over Phillies

Watch out, Dodgers. Here come the triumphant Braves.

One night after the Phillies stole Game 2 of the Wild Card series with a late rally and a clutch 10th inning home run, the Braves stepped up at Truist Park in the winner-take-all finale.

An unlikely hero opened a bullpen game, Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies and Matt Olson supplied the power, and Atlanta shut the door on Philly to advance to the NLDS for a date against the two-time defending-champion Dodgers.

Here are my takeaways:

It’s a do-or-die game, and Don Mattingly’s Phillies put Aaron Nola, their unpredictable right-hander, on the hill instead of Zack Wheeler, their reliable ace. Outside of excessive concerns about Wheeler pitching on short rest, the decision to go with Nola over him made little sense well before the first pitch was thrown.

Nola has been the definition of volatile for the Phillies this season, alternating between flashes of brilliant stretches and frustrating spirals. In the first half of the year, Nola produced a 5.75 ERA across 19 starts and 97 innings pitched. In the second half, he recorded a 3.33 ERA in 14 starts and 78 ⅓ innings. So the Phillies were encouraged enough by Nola’s second-half turnaround that they decided he was the better option than Wheeler, who turned in a six-inning, one-run gem against the Rays on Sunday.

Going with Nola’s unpredictability was a mistake. The 33-year-old recorded the shortest postseason start of his career on Thursday against the Braves. Nola lasted just 1 ⅔ innings after coughing up a three-run home run to Michael Harris II and putting the Phillies in a 3-0 hole in the first inning.

Mattingly finally turned to Wheeler at the top of the third inning, but the damage was already done. Wheeler allowed a two-run home run to Ozzie Albies in the fourth inning, but that was his only blemish. Wheeler ended up pitching four innings before his night was over, so he was clearly OK with pitching on short rest. If your best pitcher is available in an elimination game, you start him. Perhaps the Phillies were saving Wheeler for Game 1 of an NLDS that they never reached. Mattingly and the Phillies learned that lesson the hard way.

The Braves pitching staff has been remarkable this season, serving as the primary engine behind the club’s strong season. Despite the revolving door of injuries to the rotation and bullpen, Atlanta’s pitching staff finished the season with the fifth-best ERA (3.63) in the major leagues.

Most teams would collapse after losing 4–5 starting pitchers, but the Braves depth pieces and next-man-up mentality kept them elite. So it was no surprise that when the Braves called on 32-year-old southpaw Ray Kerr to take the mound in Thursday’s elimination game, he delivered.

Kerr grew up in foster care, then later worked at a 7-Eleven and a movie theater in Reno, Nev., before the Mariners offered him a minor-league contract in 2017. After getting traded to the Padres for a cup of coffee, Kerr joined the Braves in 2024, and pitched in just 10 games before undergoing Tommy John surgery. He finally made it back to the mound in August this season and recorded a 1.47 ERA in nine games (one start) before he received the nod to start Thursday’s elimination game for Atlanta.

In the most important outing of his career to date, Kerr held the Phillies to 3 ⅓ scoreless innings while allowing just one hit and one walk and striking out two. Even though he was just the latest pitcher to step up and deliver for these Braves, his performance was still nothing short of special given all that he had to overcome to be there in the first place.

Despite the Braves’ early 3-0 lead that soon turned into a 5-0 deficit for the Phillies, the visiting club still created a handful of chances to cash in on runs. Philly just couldn’t get the job done when it mattered most, which has been an unfortunate recent October trend for the club.

Their best chance to trim their deficit was in the sixth inning, when Kyle Schwarber lined a one-out single to right field and Bryce Harper followed with a double to put runners on second and third for the Phillies. But the rest of the Phillies’ lineup couldn’t hold up its end of the bargain as Alec Bohm grounded out and Bryson Stott flew out to end the inning and the threat.

Again, in the eighth inning, Derek Hill led off the frame with a triple to center. Trea Turner brought Hill home on a sacrifice fly, but that was all the Phillies could muster. With two outs in the eighth, Braves manager Walt Weiss went to his best weapon — a cutthroat Chris Sale sprinting in from the bullpen to face Bryce Harper. Sale struck out Harper on four pitches, with none of those four offerings ever touching the strike zone. Sale took care of business in the ninth and punched Atlanta’s ticket to the NLDS.

The Phillies went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left five men on base. Their season, which was on the brink of ending without a wild-card berth after last week’s brutal collapse, finally ended in a whimper at the hands of their division-rival Braves. After multiple disappointing October endings, dating back to when the Phillies lost the Fall Classic to the Astros in 2022, it’s hard to tell where they go from here.