ATLANTA – All logic screamed that Atlanta reliever Billy Wagner needed to be pulled from the Braves’ game with Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon.
Having uncharacteristically entered the contest in the eighth inning instead of his customary ninth, the 38-year-old closer had allowed two inherited runners to score, as well as a third.
Once ahead 8-2 in a game they could not lose if they were to make the playoffs, the Braves were now clinging to an 8-7 advantage. It was surely time for a pitching change if Atlanta was to have any chance to clinch the wildcard bid for this week’s NL playoffs.
“Oh, there was no way he was coming out,” said Braves skipper Bobby Cox. “If he had you’d have had a new manager for the playoffs because I would have been dead.”
This is just one of the things Atlanta is going to miss when Cox’s career ends at some point this fall. The man knows his players. He knew Wagner had had three full days of rest. He knew he wanted the ball. He knew Wagner was determined to atone for his sloppy eighth inning, if only because the player is retiring, too.
“I just knew that if I screwed up the ninth I would go home and always be a goat,” he said. “What I really wanted was to have an at-bat. I wanted to grab a bat and swing at something.”
Instead, Wagner made the Phillies swing and miss in the ninth. He faced three Phillies and struck out three Phillies to earn a standing ovation from the 52,613 Braves loyalists who packed Turner Field for the third time in three days in hopes of willing their hurting heroes to victory.
“We take our hats off to the fans,” said Cox at the close of the 8-7 win that secured Atlanta a Thursday date at San Francisco in the best-of-five divisional series. “The people have really turned out to help, and we appreciate it.”
The fans haven’t been into the Braves for years. Attendance has sagged with the team’s fortunes, though Atlanta fans haven’t been great for more than a decade, often failing to sell out previous playoff games.
But perhaps because Cox is retiring after 21 straight summers, or that Sunday was all or nothing, or just maybe because Cox has long claimed, “This is the hardest working team I’ve ever had,” the fans were clearly different on Sunday.
Each Philly out in the top of the first was greeted with a standing ovation from the sellout crowd. And when Jason Heyward robbed Shane Victorino of a home run in the third, more than 45,000 fans stood and cheered twice – when it first happened and when they replayed it on the video board.
But then the Phillies’ John Mayberry uncorked a two-run homer to left, a blast to put the brittle Braves in a 2-0 hole. The crowd momentarily slumped. They’d seen this scene way too often the past two weeks.
Only this time, Atlanta fought back. It got one run back against Roy Oswalt in the third. It then crushed Danny Baez in the fourth, scoring four times, one of the runs driven in by Hudson.
Finally in front of the NL East champs by more than a run for the first time since July 7, it was now up to Hudson to protect a 5-2 lead he’d helped forge.
But after the lead grew to 8-2 it began to shrink, Wagner’s eighth pulling the Phillies within one.
“I always pitch like I’ve got nothing to lose,” said the pitcher. “And I’ve faced those guys 58 times in my career, so there’s no secret to me anyway. I’m coming after you. I’m just glad he trusted me enough to give me another opportunity in the ninth.”
Now the Braves have an opportunity to keep Cox around for another week or more. After Thursday and Friday in San Francisco, the Braves will play Sunday in Atlanta, then next Monday, if necessary. A fifth game would be back in San Fran.
“We’ve got a good team, they’ve got a good team,” said Cox. “Let’s get this started.”
And all because Cox kept the faith that Wagner would finally find a way to stop the Phillies.