The Atlanta Braves’ streak of six consecutive NL East titles came to an end on Friday night with a 4-3 loss to the Miami Marlins, where Jake Burger had a single and a double.
Atlanta (83-71) can no longer win the division and is two games behind for the last NL wild-card spot. They have eight games remaining, including three at home against the New York Mets, who they are trying to catch.
“What we do is we worry about today,” said manager Brian Snitker. “We’re going to want to go 1-0 tomorrow. We control our own destiny, and we need to win the rest of them. We’re down to eight, and we need to take care of business tomorrow.”
Kyle Stowers also had a single and a double for Miami (57-97), which is heading towards its worst record since finishing 57-105 in 2019.
Valente Bellozo (3-4) gave up three runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings, while Anthony Bender, Lake Bachar, Declan Cronin, and Jesus Tinoco combined for two-hit relief. Tinoco recorded three outs for his second save.
Charlie Morton (8-9) allowed four runs and seven hits in six innings and threw a run-scoring wild pitch in the fifth. He has lost his last three starts.
Ozzie Albies, who had been out since July 21 with a fractured left wrist, went 0 for 4 in his return.
Burger hit a ground-rule double that scored a run in a three-run first inning, which also included Stowers’ RBI single and Jonah Bride’s sacrifice fly.
“The story of that game was the first inning,” said Morton. “If I walk a couple guys, give up a couple hits, run my pitch count up or whatever, that’s fine. I got to the fifth inning and felt like I could limit that run, and I didn’t.”
Morton added, “It’s like the first inning, you look back and it’s like ‘man.’ But there’s still a lot of baseball to be played.
If I could limit them to three runs through six innings, that’s OK considering I gave up three runs in the first. So to give up that run in the fifth was more troubling and more frustrating than the ones in the first.”
