ATLANTA — He was due.
Ha-Seong Kim hadn’t had a hit since June 3 and only that one in 50 major-league plate appearances since May 23. But Kim stroked a walk-off single into left field off Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott to give the Atlanta Braves a 6-5 victory over the Dodgers on Wednesday night.
Scott was the losing pitcher in back-to-back one-run losses to the Braves that have dropped the Dodgers two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in the National League while the Braves have moved two games behind the Dodgers for the second seed (and hold the tiebreaker, having now clinched the season series).
A defensive gaffe by Teoscar Hernandez nearly did in the Dodgers in the fourth inning when the Braves scored three times to take the lead.
The Braves’ rally started against Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki but ended against reliever Edgardo Henriquez after Sasaki came out of the game with a blister on the middle finger of his right hand.
Sasaki gave up a solo home run to Matt Olson in the first inning and four hits in the first two, but he went into the fourth with a 3-1 lead thanks to Tommy Edman’s two-run home run in the third.
But Sasaki walked Ozzie Albies to start the inning and gave up a single to Mike Yastrzemski, putting runners at the corners with no outs.
Austin Riley drove in one run with a sacrifice fly and Sean Murphy doubled, putting runners at second and third with one out. That’s when Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior, Manager Dave Roberts, a trainer and an interpreter all gathered on the mound with Sasaki. He came out of the game.
Henriquez replaced Sasaki and got ahead of Drake Baldwin, 1-and-2. But Baldwin fought his way back into a full count. The eighth pitch was a 99-mph fastball off the plate, outside to the left-handed Baldwin. He got the bat on it and drove a fly ball into the left-field corner.
Hernandez ran over but overran the ball. He reached back near the foul line but came up empty and it dropped in fair territory. Two runs scored on the misplay, flipping the score in the Braves’ favor.
The Braves made it a 5-3 lead when Sean Murphy hit a solo home run off Eric Lauer in the sixth.
The bottom half of the Dodgers’ lineup produced those first three runs – an RBI single by Hunter Feduccia to drive in Edman, who had doubled, in the second inning and a two-run homer by Edman in the third.
But it was the MVP seating section of the lineup – a combined 2 for 15 in Tuesday’s loss – that got the game tied in the seventh.
Shohei Ohtani led off with a double, hustling into second when Ronald Acuña Jr. bluffed throwing behind him. Singles by Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts pushed across one run, and back-to-back walks of Max Muncy and Edman forced the tying run home.
But the Dodgers made nothing more of the bases-loaded situation. The runners held when Kyle Tucker flew out to left field and the inning ended when Alek Thomas bounced into a double play.
The Dodgers loaded the bases again in the eighth but came up empty when Muncy chased a splitter out of the strike zone on the ninth-pitch of his at-bat against reliever Didier Fuentes. The Dodgers went 4 for 14 with runners in scoring position, stranding 11 runners.
The Braves returned the favor, wasting their own bases-loaded opportunity in the bottom of the eighth against Brock Stewart. Mauricio Dubon’s ground ball up the middle was deflected by a diving Betts right to Edman at second base to start an inning-ending double play.
In the ninth, though, the Braves put together a two-out rally against Scott, starting with a Lane Thomas double. After the Dodgers intentionally walked Austin Riley, Kim came up as a pinch-hitter and singled to drive in the deciding run.
More to come on this story.