Dansby Swanson and Jorge Soler hit back-to-back home runs in the seventh inning for the Braves, who can clinch their first World Series championship since 1995 with a victory Sunday.
ATLANTA — Perhaps Game 4 of the World Series was always going to come down to the bullpens, one way or another. The twist was that the game was decided, quite literally, on the periphery of the Houston Astros’ bullpen in the left field corner of Truist Park.
Baker and Atlanta Manager Brian Snitker both planned to rely on their relievers in Game 4. Thanks to injuries and general attrition, neither team had a starter prepared to go deep into the game. The third man to jog in from that left field Astros bullpen was Phil Maton, called on in the sixth to relieve the second man to jog in from left, Brooks Raley, after Raley let Rosario and Freddie Freeman reach. Maton surrendered a two-out single to Austin Riley in the sixth, meaning Atlanta was within a run by the seventh-inning stretch — close enough that whatever invisible force has propelled the Braves throughout October seemed likely to kick in eventually.
Swanson hadn’t homered since Sept. 1 — nearly two months. Droughts don’t matter much this time of year, when one swing can flush a stadium’s worth of memories into oblivion and replace them with new ones. A more experienced left fielder might have found a way to reach it, though it would have been a spectacular play if he had. Then again, a left fielder shorter than the 6-foot-5 Alvarez might never have had a chance at all. Either way, the ball carried over the wall, leaving Alvarez to sit there with his back to the Astros’ bullpen, where Ryan Pressly was readying himself.
An inning later, Altuve sent a ball toward that same wall, deep enough that the statistics showed it would have been out in many other ballparks, including Houston.
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