Dodgers dismantle Braves, 5-1

The Braves had a chance to do a lot of things in this game: get back to .500, claim their first series win of the year, get their first series win in Chavez Ravine in about a decade, get Charlie Morton back on track, and so on and so forth. None of those things happened, as the Dodgers basically dismantled them from the get-go en route to a 5-1 getaway day loss. The Braves were dominated so much that the Dodgers didn’t even need to use their planned piggyback of Tony Gonsolin and Tyler Anderson, as Gonsolin threw six innings of one-hit ball and Anderson warmed up but didn’t enter the game.

Things got crappy almost immediately. Gonsolin had a perfect first, and Morton wasn’t on point in the bottom half. Mookie Betts won a battle with a leadoff single, and for some reason, Morton threw a 1-0 sinker to Freddie Freeman that got smashed into the right-field stands to make it 2-0. Morton then followed with a four-pitch walk to Trea Turner, clearly ailing in some fashion, but eventually righted the ship. Morton allowed just one hit and one walk over the next three innings, including stranding a leadoff double in the second, but gave up a big fly to Edwin Rios in the fifth to make it 3-0. He was finally chased in the sixth after a four-pitch, one-out walk and then a triple by Cody Bellinger; it’s not entirely clear why he was facing the lineup a third time through after giving up two homers and having an overall-weak line, but we are where we are. Morton finished with a crappy result of four runs yielded in 5 ¹⁄₃ innings, a 4/3 K/BB ratio, and two homers allowed. When I don’t have to do arithmetic to calculate the result, this will likely be the worst pair of back-to-back starts Morton has had in quite a while.

Meanwhile, the Braves’ offense was having as miserable a time as Morton, if not even worse. Tony Gonsolin went six innings, allowing one hit, despite a weak 3/3 K/BB ratio. He wasn’t punished. though, because Orlando Arcia followed a walk with a double play ball in the second, and Dansby Swanson followed the Braves’ first hit, an infield single beat out by Manny Piña by hitting into another twin killing in the sixth. The Braves made a bunch of weak contact all day, and weren’t much of a challenge. There wasn’t even much of a “disappointing result with men on base,” because they didn’t get a runner to second until two outs in the ninth, when Matt Olson doubled. Marcell Ozuna actually finished that with a double to make it a 5-1 game, but yeah, it was over.

Collin McHugh, Tyler Thornburg, and Will Smith relieved Morton; McHugh stranded Bellinger on third with one out when entering, but gave up a run in the next frame. Brusdar Graterol threw a frame after Gonsolin departed, and the Braves got their lone run in Mitch White’s second inning of work.

No ball-in-play shenanigans in this one; the Braves just got taken apart, wire-to-wire. They’ll enjoy an off day on Thursday before kicking off a homestand on Friday night against Miami.