Marcell Ozuna gets Braves on board first in Game 7 with RBI single (Video)

Marcell Ozuna mixes it up with an RBI single in the first inning for the Atlanta Braves

Marcell Ozuna comes up big yet again for the Atlanta Braves at the plate.

The NL home run and RBI leader drove in the first run of Game 7 in the 2020 NLCS vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers. After a pair of walks by Dustin May that had Ronald Acuña Jr. and Freddie Freeman on base, Ozuna took May’s offering to left field to score a sprinting Acuña to plate the first run of the ball game. Tensions are high in this pivotal game to get to the World Series.

Do the Braves have what it takes to get to the World Series tonight?

It has been a long 21 years since the Braves made it to the Fall Classic. The last time they did, they got to party like it was 1999 because it was in fact 1999. It was so long ago that FOX’s top baseball analyst John Smoltz, who is in the booth tonight calling the game with Joe Davis, starred as one of the three aces in the Atlanta rotation with Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux.

1999 was the Braves’ fifth trip to the World Series in nine years. The “Team of the ’90s” went 1-4 in their five trips to the Fall Classic. While they lost to the Minnesota Twins in 1991, the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 and the New York Yankees twice in 1996 and 1999, the 1995 World Series Championship over the Cleveland Indians remains the only title for the Braves since relocation.

Should Ozuna, Acuña and the rest of the 2020 Braves win tonight, they will face the AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays at the same Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas where the 2020 NLCS has been played. The Braves split their four-game season series with the Rays in the 60-game, coronavirus-shortened 2020 MLB season. Maybe Atlanta won’t have to pack bags after tonight?

One run won’t due it, so look for Ozuna and his teammates to expand on their lead in a bit.