ATLANTA — The Dodgers are justifiably excited about the starting rotation they are assembling. The spillage into the bullpen it will produce might be just as important.
They got five strong innings – really, four – from Tyler Glasnow in his return from a back injury that sidelined him for 3½ months. But the Atlanta Braves scored a run off reliever Tanner Scott in the eighth inning to take a 4-3 victory on Tuesday night in the opener of a three-game series that could be important for playoff seeding.
The Dodgers had the tying run at third base with no outs in the ninth inning after Shohei Ohtani led off the inning with a triple off the left field wall, just feet from going out. But Braves closer Raisel Iglesias struck out Freddie Freeman (with the help of an ABS overturn) and Mookie Betts bounced out to the drawn-in infield.
After intentionally walking Max Muncy, Iglesias got Tommy Edman to fly out to center field to end the game.
The loss was the Dodgers’ fourth one-run decision in their past seven games and the first to go against them, snapping their six-game winning streak.
The deciding run in this one came in the eighth when Scott gave up a leadoff double to Matt Olson – the first extra-base hit allowed by the Dodgers since Saturday. A ground out moved him to third, and he stayed there when Michael Harris II grounded weakly back to Scott for the second out.
But Scott fell behind Ozzie Albies 2-and-0. When he came back with a slider down but over the plate, Albies dumped it into center field for an RBI single.
The Braves greeted Glasnow with a reminder of how frustrating pitching can be. Four of the first five batters the right-hander faced in his return reached base on singles. Only Drake Baldwin’s leadoff single was hit particularly hard (95.3 mph off the bat). After that, the exit velocities on the Braves’ hits were 81.8 mph, 68.7 mph and 77.9 mph.
But the soft contact produced two runs. A third scored on a sacrifice fly.
Glasnow struck out Mike Yastrzemski to end the first – thanks to an ABS challenge by catcher Hunter Feduccia – struck out the side in the second inning and five batters in a row into the third.
After Michael Harris II had the fourth of the Braves’ first-inning singles, Glasnow retired 14 of 16 batters and struck out seven in his five innings.
The Dodgers got back into the game after the Braves’ head start with their own batch of singles.
In the second, four singles produced two runs, Alek Thomas and Feduccia getting the RBI hits. In the fourth, Tommy Edman led off with a single, stole second base and scored on Alex Call’s single to tie the game, 3-3.
It stayed that way into the eighth inning when Albies decided things.
More to come on this story.