Braves offense flounders yet again in loss to Dodgers

Neither team was able to get off to a fast start in the first inning as Max Fried and Alex Wood began their fantastic pitching duel.

Max Fried had a slip up in the second inning after a leadoff single by Enrique Hernandez and then plunked Cody Bellinger to put runners on first and second with nobody out. The runners were then advanced to second and third on a flyout from Logan Forsythe and then Yasiel Puig drove in the only run against Max Fried tonight to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Over the next four innings neither team could get anything going as Fried and Wood continued to duel. Fried exited in the sixth inning with a final line of 5 innings of 2 hit, 1 run ball to go along with 7 strikeouts.

Alex Wood was equally as good and got some more support in the bottom of the sixth inning off the bat of Yasiel Puig yet again as he hammered a two run homer to left field off of Braves reliever Luke Jackson to make the score 3-0.

Atlanta continued to struggle on offense over the middle innings as Alex Wood continued to cruise into the sixth inning when he was replaced by JT Chargois. Woods final line was 5.2 innings of 1 hit, no run ball with 5 strikeouts.

Johan Camargo finally broke through for the Braves in the bottom of the seventh with a solo shot to left field off of Dodgers’ reliever Caleb Ferguson, but the Braves could not push across any more runs against a tough Los Angeles pitching staff.

The Dodgers continued to pour it on in the bottom of the ninth off of Sam Freeman with two more runs on 2 hits and 2 walks allowed before Jonny Venters entered the game to put out the fire with the score being 5-1. Atlanta really had nothing going offensively and went quietly in the bottom of the ninth to lose their third straight game to Los Angeles.

The Braves are now in danger of being swept by their NL West rivals.

Atlanta will be trying to avoid that scenario tomorrow afternoon against the overpowered Dodgers. Stay tuned.