ATLANTA – If the Atlanta Braves can’t win on a night when they lead 2-0 in the first inning and 4-3 in the fifth and their ace Chris Sale is on the mound, that’s a problem.

They had that lead on Wednesday night against the Milwaukee Brewers. But Sale, helped neither by Jorge Soler’s defense in right field nor the umpire’s strike zone, failed to make it past the fifth inning of an 8-5 loss that extended the Braves’ losing streak to four and left them two games behind the NL wild-card leaders Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres.

“That’s baseball, you have to deal with that kind of stuff,” said Sale, who had 10 strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings and allowed nine hits and three runs, two of which were earned and another of which could have been prevented. “They just found a way to keep putting the ball in play and that was by finding gaps. They’re relentless. They’re a good team, they know what they’re doing.”

Atlanta has lost 11 of 17 games and needs a win on Thursday to avoid being swept by Milwaukee. The Braves then begin a 10-game trip out West that begins Friday at the Colorado Rockies before traveling to the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels.

A week ago, it looked like the Braves had a chance to catch the NL East-leading Philadelphia Phillies, or at least put some distance between themselves and the rest of the wild-card field. Now, things are looking very different after the Braves lost two games in a row to the dismantled Miami Marlins and two to the Brewers.

Three wild-card teams in each division have made the playoffs, and the Braves are now third in the NL, a half-game ahead of the New York Mets in both the wild-card and NL East standings. The Braves, six-time defending division champions, slipped to 7 1/2 games behind Philadelphia, which beat the Dodgers 9-4 in LA.

The Braves took advantage of six wins in seven games – their best performance since April – and a Philadelphia slump to cut the Phillies’ lead from 9 1/2 games to five in less than a week. But that was before this four-game losing streak, in which the Braves were 17-0 against the Marlins on Sunday and the Brewers on Tuesday, their first consecutive nine-inning scoreless loss since September 2014.

This ball was thrown out of the stadium.@austinriley1308 | #BravesCountry pic.twitter.com/hEF3D3P0WF

— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) 8 August 2024

Austin Riley scored three runs on Wednesday and gave the Braves a two-run lead with his RBI double in the first inning and his two-run homer in the fifth. The home run came after the Brewers scored twice in the fifth inning to briefly take a 3-2 lead.

Riley’s double earned Soler a point and ended a 24-inning scoreless streak for the Braves, who have only had two longer dry spells in the last 35 seasons.

The Braves led 2-1 and the Brewers had runners on the corners without outs in the fifth inning after Rhys Hoskins and Gary Sánchez had consecutive singles, the latter on a fly ball that Soler could have caught with a better route, after Soler’s error on a Joey Ortiz double in the third inning – he dropped the ball after recovering it in the corner – allowed Milwaukee’s first run.

Soler had served exclusively as a DH for the Giants all season before being traded to the Braves last week and pushed into right field.

That’s a nice hit pic.twitter.com/WAmcMpZ5cf

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) 8 August 2024

“I don’t think it was a difficult process, I just think I didn’t have a good game today,” Soler said through an interpreter. “It’s definitely frustrating. Nobody wants something like that to happen out there and you don’t want to be the reason for it. But what do you do? You close the chapter and play again tomorrow.”

Regarding the fact that he had not played in the outfield all season until last week, he said: “There is no excuse for that. I played poorly.”

With the Brewers on the corners in the fifth inning after Soler’s second error, it looked like Sale might be able to get out of trouble with strikeouts. He struck out William Contreras and Willy Adames to take a 2-0 lead against Ortiz. But Ortiz reached down for an 2-0 slider well below the strike zone and lifted it into shallow left field for an RBI single to tie the game.

Blake Perkins followed with another single on the next pitch to give the Brewers a 3-2 lead and end Sale’s night. He threw 96 pitches in just the second game this season in which he lasted less than five innings.

In the fifth inning, manager Brian Snitker was ejected for arguing over balls and strikes with home plate umpire Brian Walsh, whose strike zone was inconsistent all night. Sale did not blame the strike zone or Soler’s problems.

“Again, this is baseball,” the veteran left-hander said. “You’re not going to be perfect all the time. I know what (Soler) can do and what he’s going to bring to the table. Ultimately, I see this more as an opportunity to support teammates when something like this happens.”

“I’ve obviously had my share of starts where I’ve allowed runs or made untimely runs and the guys have come back and helped me. So it’s just opportunities to support each other and be good teammates. Try to weather the storm.”

Two batters after Snitker was thrown out, Riley hit a ball out to put the Braves back in front, 4-3. His two-out home run against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta was his 16th.

That saved Sale from defeat on a night in which he allowed two walks and nine hits – a season record, including one that could have been avoided had Soler not messed it up.

“He hasn’t played in the outfield all year,” Snitker said. “We knew that when we got him. We knew there would be some tough situations. So I don’t expect him to go out there and be a Gold Glove right fielder. To his credit, every time since we got him, when I’ve tried to give him a day (off), he’s wanted to play. Because he this guy.”

When asked about Soler’s defense, Snitker said, “We were hoping the other part would make up for it. We’re going to go through some growing pains, and we knew that when we got him. So there’s nothing bad to say about Jorge Soler. He’s doing his best out there, too. When we sent him to the outfield, and he wasn’t there, we knew there could be some difficult moments.”

In Sale’s previous seven starts following a Braves loss, he was 5-1 with a 1.42 ERA. He received a no-decision on Wednesday.

“He’s been battling the whole time,” Snitker said. “It’s just one of those nights. These things happen. But one thing I know about this guy is that when he goes out there, he leaves his thing on the mound. Every pitch, he leaves every ounce of what he has on the mound.”

It was Sale’s 85th game with double-digit strikeouts, moving him past Hall of Famer Steve Carlton for eighth place on the all-time list. He was back at pitcher after additional rest, making his second consecutive Wednesday appearance against the Brewers after throwing a no-decision in the Braves’ 6-2 win over them at their home stadium last week.

In an effort to preserve the health of Sale, who last pitched 150 innings in 2018 due to injury, and retrained reliever Reynaldo López, who has already pitched nearly 40 more innings than in any other season since 2019, the team has given them additional rest between all but two starts.

“My job is to throw,” Sale said of the varying breaks between starts. “They put me in the game and tell me when to give me the ball. Whether that’s every five, six or seven days, I don’t care. I have routines that fit any schedule. They generally tell us pretty quickly when it’s going to happen, and I have routines for each of those scenarios. So it doesn’t bother me either way.”

Although López was placed on the 15-day IL this week because of inflammation in his right forearm, it was more of a precautionary measure so the Braves could give him eight days without throwing and more than two weeks between starts after he left his July 28 start because of tightness in his forearm. An MRI that evening showed no structural damage or other discomfort.

Four days has long been considered a “normal amount of rest” for a five-man rotation, but many teams now use five days of rest just as often as four. The Braves are at the extreme end of MLB teams in this regard, arguing that Max Fried, who has dealt with forearm injuries in each of the past two seasons, and 40-year-old Charlie Morton could also benefit from longer rest.

The team is doing what it believes is wise to enter the postseason with a healthy top rotation after the Braves’ starting pitchers were plagued by injuries and illness in consecutive NLDS losses to Philadelphia over the past two postseasons.

But if the Braves fail to turn things around and avoid another drop in the wildcard standings, they may not have to worry about their starting pitchers being healthy come playoff season.

(Photo by Jorge Soler: Brett Davis / USA Today)