Atlanta Braves at St. Louis Cardinals: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATL | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 0 |
| STL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 0 |
The Story
The Atlanta Braves handed the St. Louis Cardinals a 4-1 defeat at Busch Stadium on April 4, 2023, erasing what the DiamondIQ model had estimated as a 54 percent pre-game home win probability for St. Louis and reducing it to zero by the final out. Atlanta jumped on the Cardinals immediately, plating two runs in the first inning and adding one more in each of the second and third, building a lead the Cardinals could never seriously threaten. St. Louis managed just a single run in the fourth and went scoreless the rest of the way despite finishing with ten hits, leaving a trail of stranded baserunners that proved decisive.
The Cardinals' inability to capitalize was defined by several momentum-killing at-bats against starter Dylan Dodd, who finished as the game's single most impactful performer with a WPA of plus-25.4 percent. Paul Goldschmidt grounded into a double play in the bottom of the first, a swing of minus-7.0 percent in win probability, and Tyler O'Neill's strikeout in the bottom of the second carried a minus-8.8 percent swing, the single largest probability shift of the night. Tommy Edman's flyout in the fifth added another minus-7.0 percent blow to St. Louis's chances. Dodd repeatedly extinguished threats in the critical early innings, and Jesse Chavez and Kirby Yates combined to add plus-6.0 and plus-5.2 percent, respectively, in relief to close it out.
On the offensive side, catcher Sean Murphy led all position players with a WPA of plus-11.6 percent and a RE24 of plus-0.6, providing the most consequential production in the Braves' lineup. Travis d'Arnaud contributed plus-4.8 percent WPA and led the group with a RE24 of plus-1.0, while Austin Riley added plus-4.3 percent WPA and a RE24 of plus-1.1, grounding out productively in the second in a plus-6.3 percent swing. Atlanta's twelve hits were efficiently distributed across the game's early innings, and the DiamondIQ model's lean toward the Cardinals before first pitch proved entirely reversed by a Braves team that dominated the run column from the opening frame.