Austin Riley Homer Gives Braves Win Over Phillies
· Yahoo Sports
For seven innings, the Braves and Phillies did what the Braves and Phillies tend to do when October rolls around: trade punches, create headaches, and make absolutely nothing easy.
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Then Austin Riley stepped to the plate.
Austin Riley Changes the Game With One Swing
Two outs. Eighth inning. Atlanta trailing by one. Two runners aboard. Philadelphia’s top reliever, Jhoan Duran, on the mound.
And after a replay review briefly stopped the action, Duran came back with his first pitch: a 99.9 mph fastball right down the middle.
He drove the ball toward right-center field, watched it carry, and watched it barely clear the fence for a three-run homer that flipped the entire game. Just like that, Atlanta had a 5-3 lead, and that score would hold up for a dramatic Game 1 victory in the National League Wild Card Series.
Now, here’s the thing about Riley: this was not some storybook season building toward an obvious October moment.
Quite the opposite.
Riley struggled through a down year, posting career worsts in several offensive categories. Braves manager Walt Weiss, however, said Riley’s demeanor never changed.
“You couldn’t tell this year if he was the leading MVP candidate or if he was struggling, I mean that,” Weiss said. “He was the same guy every day. Stuff like this doesn’t happen if you ride that roller coaster of emotion as a player.”
And Riley himself?
Asked whether he knew the ball was gone the second he hit it, he paused for a while before giving the answer that probably described what plenty of Braves fans were doing at that exact moment.
“No, I did not,” Riley said. “I was praying it was going as I was running to first.”
That’ll do.
Riley said he approached the matchup with Duran like any other regular-season at-bat, but then offered a line that explained the mentality behind the moment.
“That’s the beauty of the postseason: clean slate.”
AUSTIN RILEY
— MLB (@MLB) September 29, 2026
GO-AHEAD THREE-RUN HOMER
ATLANTA IS GOING WILD 🤯 pic.twitter.com/XrPQnazvVO
Braves and Phillies Trade Late-Inning Blows
And Atlanta certainly needed one.
The game had already swung back and forth before Riley ever came to the plate. The Braves moved ahead 2-1 in the bottom of the sixth when Ozzie Albies ripped a triple to deep center field.
Philadelphia answered almost immediately.
In the top of the seventh, J.T. Realmuto drove a two-run triple into the right-field corner, giving the Phillies a 3-2 lead and turning the pressure right back on Atlanta.
Weiss had seen this movie before.
“That’s usually how it goes when these two teams play each other,” he said.
No argument there.
Chris Sale Delivers in First Playoff Start Since 2021
The starting pitching had been every bit as intense as the score suggested.
Chris Sale, making his first postseason start since 2021, delivered 6⅓ innings for Atlanta and struck out nine. Both numbers represented playoff career highs.
Sale was not exactly trying to hide how ready he was for the moment, either.
“It was exciting,” he said. “I could’ve pitched this game at 8:15 this morning. It felt like one of those scary movies where my eyes opened and I just popped out of bed.”
Philadelphia got a strong outing of its own from Jesus Luzardo, who had missed nearly three weeks because of inflammation in his left shoulder. Luzardo returned from the injured list to throw one relief inning Sunday, then entered Tuesday’s game on a pitch count.
He still gave the Phillies five innings of one-run baseball while striking out six.
“He gave us more [innings] than we thought he would, honestly,” Phillies manager Don Mattingly said.
Sale Backs Rookie Didier Fuentes After Tough Seventh
Things became more complicated for Atlanta after Sale exited.
Rookie Didier Fuentes came in and surrendered Realmuto’s two-run triple, allowing both runners he inherited from Sale to score.
Sale, however, made it clear afterward that there would be no finger-pointing.
“We have faith and trust in each other. [Fuentes] is the right guy for that situation,” Sale said.
And when Fuentes was clearly bothered by the result, Sale gave him the kind of veteran reminder that tends to matter after a postseason mistake.
“He felt bad about it, and I said we all need help sometimes, too. That’s why this is a team game.”
Jhoan Duran’s Eighth-Inning Fastball Proves Costly
Then came Duran.
Philadelphia’s top reliever entered in the seventh inning and remained in the game long enough to face Riley in the eighth. One fastball later, the entire night changed.
Mattingly said afterward he had not decided whether Duran would have returned for a third inning had Philadelphia maintained its lead through the eighth. Duran finished with 27 pitches, and Mattingly also declined to rule him out for Game 2.
Phillies Face Elimination With Cristopher Sanchez on the Mound
And now the Phillies have no margin left.
Their season goes on the line Wednesday, with ace Cristopher Sanchez scheduled to take the mound.
“I’ll always feel good with Christopher out there,” Mattingly said. “The playoffs are momentum-based, and it starts with your starting pitcher.”
That is where Philadelphia has to turn next.
Because Game 1 belonged to Atlanta, and more specifically, to a hitter who spent much of the season fighting through numbers that were nowhere near his usual standards.
Then October arrived.
Clean slate.