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ATLANTA — Nothing matters until October. Nothing matters until October.
Keep repeating that to yourself as the Dodgers slink out of Atlanta having been swept by the Braves after Chris Sale held them to five hits in a complete-game shutout in a 1-0 defeat on Thursday night.
The series in Atlanta this week was the Dodgers’ fourth against another team currently in playoff contention over the past four weeks (the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers and Braves).
The Dodgers have been swept in three of those series while going 1-12 against their fellow playoff teams.
Add in the Arizona Diamondbacks (one game out of a wild-card spot when games started Thursday) and the Dodgers have gone 2-14 against the only teams with winning records they have faced over the past four weeks. The good news?
Their final 28 games of the season include just two series against teams currently with winning records – the Miami Marlins on Sept. 11-13 and the San Diego Padres on Sept.
22-24. “Honestly, I’m not too concerned about it.
I know we’ve got a good ballclub,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game when confronted with the Dodgers’ losing record (now 31-35) against teams with winnin g records. “I didn’t know that statistic but I’d still take us against any of those winning teams.
It just comes down to us having to play good baseball, which for a six-game stretch we were on our way to doing.” That six-game winning streak against the perennially downtrodden Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates faded quickly from memory this week as the Braves handed them three one-run losses.
Sale put the exclamation mark on the sweep, dominating the Dodgers’ hitters for nine innings. The Dodgers had seven baserunners against him (five hits and two hit batters).
Only three of those came with less than two outs in the inning and only one touched second base. Mookie Betts got there when his pop-up fell in down the left-field line for a leadoff double in the fourth inning.
He didn’t advance any farther.
Sale struck out 11 while walking no one, getting 19 swings-and-misses including 11 on his deadly slider – the Dodgers came up empty each of the first five times they swung at it – and seven on his fastball, which touched 100.1 mph in one of his matchups with Ohtani (0 for 4 with two strikeouts).
It was Sale’s fastest pitch since 2018 and he still hit 99 mph to strike out Alex Cal l and end the game on his 109th pitch of the night . The 11-K game was the 95th double-digit strikeout game of the 37-year-old lefty’s career, seventh all-time (two behind another lefty, Sandy Koufax).
His fourth career shutout was his first since 2019. If the Dodgers’ offense looks far from October-ready, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at least does.
He gave up a home run on his first pitch of the game on Thursday – just as he did in Game 2 of last year’s National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. He went on to a complete-game victory that night, allowing just two more hits .
Drake Baldwin hammered a hanging splitter for the game-opening homer on Thursday night. Yamamoto then retired 19 of the next 21 batters he faced, striking out eight, before an infield single and a walk ended his night in the seventh inning.
Gợi ý thực hành:
1. Theo dõi thông báo từ cơ quan địa phương tại California.
2. Kiểm tra nguồn chính thức trước khi chia sẻ lại thông tin.