SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Braves' best pitcher, NL Cy Young Award favorite Chris Sale, was back home in Atlanta with a back injury. Max Fried, who started his career as a San Diego Padres farmhand and won the clinching game in the 2021 World Series for the Braves, was in the trainer's room by the third inning. Still, the Braves put a scare into the sellout crowd at Petco Park by whittling San Diego's lead down to one run Wednesday night.
But the Padres closed out a 5-4 win for a two-game sweep of their NL Wild Card Series that ended a most trying season for Atlanta. The banged-up Braves were decimated by injuries all year and still managed to make their seventh straight playoff appearance — even though their six-year reign atop the NL East was halted. “We won 89 games.
I’m so proud of those guys,” manager Brian Snitker said. “I just told them that. It’s amazing what they did, I think, to put ourselves in contention.
We had a chance here. We got in the tournament. “Get a hit yesterday, hit today, who knows, we may be playing tomorrow,” Snitker said.
“But we’re not. It’s the way this thing is. That’s how fragile this is and how hard it is.
You just remember how hard it is in this long season for things to go right for you.” Sale was scratched from the nightcap of a makeup doubleheader Monday against the New York Mets with back spasms — a game Atlanta needed to win to reach the postseason. He was left off the roster for the Wild Card Series.
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