ATLANTA — Spencer Horwitz homered twice among his four hits, José Berríos pitched six effective innings, and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Atlanta Braves 9-5 on Saturday night to knock them out of the National League’s third and final wild-card spot in the playoff race.
With three weeks left in the regular season, the Braves (77-65) fell one game behind the New York Mets (78-64), who beat the Cincinnati Reds 4-0 to extend their winning streak to nine games.
Atlanta has made the playoffs the past six seasons, each time as the NL East Division champion. The Braves are currently third in the division standings, with the Mets second and seven games behind the Philadelphia Phillies (85-57).
“We’ve got 20 games left,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “All we’ve got to go is 1-0 right now as we go forward.”
Berríos (15-9) allowed one earned run and five hits to set a career high for wins. The 30-year-old right-hander struck out five batters and walked one.
“Finally I got to 15,” Berríos said of his wins total. “The only thing better than winning is winning again. As a team, when we win it’s fun. Every win I am going to celebrate, and it is a great accomplishment for me and for the team, too.”
Horwitz had the second multihomer game of his MLB career, opening the scoring with a solo shot in the second inning and then hitting another in the fourth to make it 2-0. He finished 4-for-5 with three RBIs.
Braves starter Spencer Schwellenbach (6-6) gave up six runs (three earned) and 10 hits in five innings. It ended a run of 25 straight games in which Atlanta starting pitchers allowed three runs or fewer.
It was Schwellenbach’s worst outing in his past 11 starts. The rookie right-hander had averaged less than three runs allowed a game dating to the beginning of July.
“It’s a grind,” Schwellenbach said. “I haven’t thrown this many innings in my life. But I’m doing everything I can to recover and get in the training room and the weight room and do everything I can to come out and pitch each time. Every fifth day you have to go out and compete.”
After Horwitz’s second homer, Ernie Clement and Joey Loperfido had back-to-back RBI doubles to push Toronto’s lead to 4-0 in the fourth. Horwitz had an RBI double and scored on Will Wagner’s grounder to make it 6-0 in the fifth.
“This is another new experience that he is going to learn from,” Snitker said of Schwellenbach’s bumpy outing. “He’s creating things to fall back on and learn from in the future. If he keeps throwing strikes, that’s a lot easier to live with.”
The American League’s Blue Jays extended their advantage to 9-1 with three runs in the top of the ninth on Nathan Lukes’ RBI single, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s run-scoring fielder’s choice and Wagner’s RBI single.
In the bottom of the ninth inning, Jarred Kelenic had an RBI single. The Braves loaded the bases two batters later on Orlando Arcia’s single to center, and Luke Williams followed with a two-run double to cut the deficit to 9-4 and chase Blue Jays reliever Luis Frías after just one-third of an inning.
Brandon Little came on and gave up a run-scoring grounder to Michael Harris II and got Travis d’Arnaud on a groundout to end the game as Toronto bounced from Friday’s 3-1 loss to open the series.
The Braves fell to 7-37 this season in games in which they have allowed five runs or more.
Atlanta infielder Whit Merrifield was out of the lineup after fouling a ball off one of his feet in Friday night’s game. A CT scan and MRI revealed a fracture in the foot. The initial diagnosis was that he would be out six to eight weeks, but the timetable for a possible return remains uncertain.
Friday’s game was his first after missing two while in the concussion protocol due to getting hit in the head with a pitch.
The rubber match for the interleague series at Truist Park is Sunday afternoon. The scheduled starting pitchers are Atlanta left-hander Chris Sale (16-3, 2.46 ERA) and Toronto right-hander Yariel Rodríguez (1-6, 4.61).