ATLANTA — “No Time Like October” flashed across the video boards around Truist Park, a fine little slogan that had suddenly turned ominous. Ninety-four wins and an NL East title, yet the Atlanta Braves were trailing in the bottom of the eighth of their first wild-card game — and suddenly in very real danger of not even seeing October.
The Braves had handed the Game 1 ball to ace Chris Sale. The Phillies had skidded into the postseason sideways and smoking, their fate in doubt until the very last day. All three games of the wild-card series would be in Atlanta, before an enthusiastic, if late-arriving, home crowd. Everything was set up for the Braves to dispatch the reeling Phillies once and for all, the way they did all season.
“I could have pitched this game at 8:15 this morning,” Sale said after the game. “I felt like one of those scary movies. My eyes opened [this morning], and I popped out of bed.”
But there is indeed no time like October — or the postseason, to expand the parameters of that slogan by two days — and that means strange things await. Philadelphia has taken up residence inside the heads of Atlanta fans; the Phillies knocked the Braves out of the postseason in both 2022 and 2023. On Tuesday, Bryce Harper received the full supervillain treatment, from Darth Vader’s “Imperial March” walkup music to cascades of boos from the home fans.
So when the Phillies’ J.T. Realmuto jumped on some Sale loose ends and a rare Didier Fuentes mistake in the seventh, tripling home two runs to flip a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 Philadelphia lead, Truist Park grew uneasy. The Phillies had absorbed six-plus quality innings from Sale, including a postseason-career-best nine strikeouts, and here they were, ready to vulture the first game away from Atlanta and put the Braves’ backs against the wall.
“The game’s unpredictable, man,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said afterward. “You take your best shot, and then whatever happens, happens.”
The thing about the postseason, though, is that strange things await on both sides. And on an afternoon when the Braves’ best pitcher couldn’t quite contain the Phillies’ offense, one of the Braves’ most disappointing hitters obliterated them.
By the numbers, Austin Riley is playing on the most expensive contract in Braves history, a 10-year, $212 million beast signed in 2022. Also by the numbers, Riley has been one of Atlanta’s biggest disappointments in 2026, finishing the regular season with a .219 batting average, a .364 slugging percentage and just 19 home runs in 159 games.
Good thing for Riley, then, that everything resets when the postseason hits.
With two out and two on in the bottom of the eighth, Riley came to the plate against Phillies closer Jhoan Duran. On the very first pitch he saw, a 99.9-mph four-seamer, middle-in, Riley ripped a three-run homer out to right-center field, staking Atlanta to a two-run lead with just one inning to play. Redemption, relief and exultation, all in one swing of the bat.
“My season went … not the way I wanted to,” Riley said after the game. “But that’s the beauty of the postseason, you kind of get a clean slate and go out there and try to do something for the boys and for the city.”
For Philadelphia, Tuesday’s loss is one more in a long series of late-season body blows. After being as far out of first place as 10.5 games, the Phillies closed to within three of Atlanta on Sept. 9 … and then fumbled it away. Philadelphia closed the year on a 1-4 skid, barely managing to stay ahead of the Diamondbacks for the final National League playoff spot.
And yet the Phillies will run out a fully rested Cristopher Sánchez on Wednesday, and he could flip this entire series once again — though the Braves beat him in both of his appearances against Atlanta this year.
“I always feel good with Cristopher out there,” Phillies manager Don Mattingly said. “The playoffs are momentum-based, it seems like, and really, the momentum starts with your starting pitcher.”
The Braves will counter in Game 2 with strong deadline acquisition Tyler Mahle, who has a win in two appearances against Philadelphia already this season.
“This first game of the postseason, it was kind of like our season in a way, right?” Sale said postgame. “Everybody just pouring everything they had into it and never folding, never feeling like we were out of it. From the first pitch to the last pitch, all nine guys, guys on the bench — talk about being engaged and focused and determined.
“I think I’ve said it a lot: Whether you’re up one, down one, down three, it doesn’t matter if it’s the first [inning] or the ninth. You always have that feeling like we have a chance to win this game.”
The Braves are now guaranteed to play at least two more games, the Phillies one. Odds are there won’t be anything routine about how the rest of this series goes.
No time like October, after all.
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