Braves 6, Phillies 2: Harris, Kerr, and a Winner-Take-All Night

Two walks, then a ball to right-center, then October moved on.

October 1, 2026 - Atlanta - Aaron Nola walked Ronald Acuña Jr.. He walked Matt Olson. Michael Harris II hit a fly to right-center, 387 feet, and Truist Park had a 3-0 lead before the first inning was over. The Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 in National League Wild Card Game 3, won the series 2-1, and sent Philadelphia home.

Partly cloudy. 84 degrees. Wind 5 mph left to right. First pitch 8:15 p.m. Attendance 41,731. The game lasted 2 hours, 46 minutes. Atlanta's next series opens Saturday at Dodger Stadium against the Dodgers.

Harris, Olson, and Ozzie Albies all homered. They were on the Atlanta clubs Philadelphia knocked out of the 2022 and 2023 NLDS, the MLB recap said. Thursday was the first time this group beat the Phillies in a postseason series. It was also Atlanta's first winner-take-all postseason win since Game 7 of the 1996 NLCS, after six straight losses in those games.

Kerr opened. Holmes followed. Sale finished it.

Ray Kerr learned Wednesday night that he would start a winner-take-all game. He is 32. Six weeks earlier he was at Triple-A Gwinnett, still coming back from 2024 Tommy John surgery, the MLB recap said. He threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings: one hit, two strikeouts, one walk, 47 pitches. Kyle Schwarber singled in the first and walked in the fourth. Bryce Harper struck out and then lined into a force. Kerr got through both of them twice. Walt Weiss kept him in until that second pass through the top of the order, then handed the game to the rest of the staff.

"Hopefully Ray Kerr became a bit of a household name tonight," Weiss said, per MLB.com. "He deserves it. He's got an amazing story of perseverance."

"This was just another Thursday," Kerr said. "Growing up, I had a hard time. So, this was nothing."

Grant Holmes took over with one out in the fourth and Harper on first. He retired Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, then worked two innings for the win: two hits, one earned, one walk, one strikeout, 28 pitches. In the fifth, Bryan De La Cruz singled and Brandon Marsh walked. Justin Crawford hit into a double play. In the sixth, Holmes got Turner, then allowed a Schwarber single. Robert Suarez inherited that runner. Harper doubled. Bohm grounded to short. Schwarber scored. 5-1. Harper stayed at third. Stott flied to right. The Phillies were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position all night.

Didier Fuentes threw a clean seventh. Dylan Dodd allowed Derek Hill's triple in the eighth. Trea Turner lifted a sacrifice fly. 6-2. Then Chris Sale walked in from the bullpen, a little more than 48 hours after 95 pitches and 6 1/3 innings in Game 1. He struck Harper out to end the eighth. Bohm singled to start the ninth. Sale popped Stott up and struck out Bryan De La Cruz and pinch-hitter Otto Kemp. Four outs. 21 pitches. Three strikeouts. No save. The game was already decided. The building still stood up for it.

"To do what he did tonight for us, that's unbelievable," Sale said of Kerr, per MLB.com. "He did everything he could for this ballclub. He put it on the line for us tonight. That fired me up, honestly, and I think it got everyone going."

"That was a best-case scenario, and he did it," Weiss said. "He got through the top twice, which kept us from using another guy at the top. So, Ray. It all started with Ray. Everything fell into place because of Ray Kerr."

Nola for 1 2/3. Wheeler for four. The homers kept coming.

Nola lasted 1 2/3: two hits, three earned, two walks, one strikeout, Harris's homer, 38 pitches. He is 0-1. Tim Mayza got the last out of the first with a runner still on. Zack Wheeler threw four innings in relief: three hits, two earned, three walks, three strikeouts, 68 pitches. The two earned runs were Albies in the fourth, a 419-foot fly to right-center after Austin Riley walked. 5-0.

Jonathan Bowlan threw the seventh. Two outs, then Olson to center, 416 feet. 6-1. Bowlan hit Harris after that. Mauricio Dubón made an out on batter interference. Jhoan Duran struck out two in a scoreless eighth. Philadelphia's pitching staff allowed three homers and six runs. That is the whole Atlanta offense. Six hits. Six RBI. All six runs scored on those three balls.

Philadelphia's two runs were a groundout and a sacrifice fly. Schwarber went 2-for-3 with a walk and the run Bohm drove in. Harper doubled in the sixth and struck out twice. Hill's triple off Dodd was the loudest swing the visitors had. Turner was 0-for-3 with the fly that scored Hill. Stott was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. The Phillies left five on. They never led.

Atlanta goes west. Philadelphia goes home.

The Dodgers are two-time defending World Series champions. The NLDS starts Saturday in Los Angeles. Weiss was not sure after the game whether Sale could start Game 2 on Sunday, ESPN's recap said, because of the 21 pitches on one day of rest. That is a problem for Saturday's clubhouse, not Thursday's.

Philadelphia won Game 2 in 10 innings on Wednesday with three homers. Thursday it scored twice and went 0-for-6 when a hit would have changed the inning. Nola did not survive the first. Kerr survived the assignment he got on no notice. The series is over.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Atlanta at 13 team fantasy points on a one-game Thursday. Kerr had 9.33 pitching FP. Harris and Olson had 8 hitting FP each. Albies had 7. Those numbers are the 6-2: a win, six runs, two against, and the three homers.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: MLB.com schedule; MLB Gameday wrap; ESPN scoreboard; ESPN box score; ESPN recap; AthX Engine scoring applied to verified box stats. Information only; not financial advice.*