The national anthem has been sung. The seats were filled to capacity. The field was raked, chalked, and prepared for baseball.
More than three hours passed before the first pitch was thrown.
The scheduled 7:15 p.m. local start at Truist Park in Atlanta on Friday was delayed by a thunderstorm, resulting in a 10:21 p.m. start time.
The three-plus-hour delay could have forced a cancellation, resulting in a doubleheader on Sunday. However, with the Braves already on a 17-game winning streak, the Dodgers were instructed to “hunker down,” as manager Dave Roberts put it before the game, and wait.
“I think that the Braves and Major League Baseball were very motivated to play tonight,” Roberts told the crowd.
“When we got to about 8:30, I kind of figured we were gonna be playing this game,” added first baseman Freddie Freeman. “Which is fine. We’re here, so we might as well play it.
The Dodgers won 10-3 despite adverse weather conditions and a late night that lasted until early Sunday morning, marking their seventh consecutive victory.
“Give credit to our guys, just for staying focused,” Roberts said. “We came out with some intent tonight.”
Despite a lengthy delay, Roki Sasaki won his first MLB game with a five-inning, three-run start.
Freeman and Shohei Ohtani each hit home runs, with Ohtani breaking an early 1-1 tie in the third and Freeman putting the game out of reach in the eighth.
Most importantly, a Dodgers team that spent the majority of the first month trying to get their act together on the mound and at the plate — despite still having the best record in the majors — continued to round into increasingly dominant form, getting closer to hitting their tantalizing top gear.
“Just a lot of good things [have] happened in the last week or so,” Freeman said after the Dodgers scored their third double-digit run total in four games. “The offense has obviously been swinging the bat really well.”
Few sequences exemplified this better than the Dodgers’ (23-10) skewed numbers in the third and fourth innings.
The Dodgers scored two runs in the third inning by playing both long and small ball. Ohtani led off with his eighth home run, a towering solo shot to straightaway center. Betts singled, advanced to second base on a hit-and-run play, and scored when Teoscar Hernández hit a ground ball through the infield, tying Aaron Judge for the MLB lead with 33 RBI.
In the fourth inning, their offense went station-to-station, scoring four runs with two outs. Ohtani led off with a single to center. Betts followed with an RBI double down the left field line, his fourth consecutive multi-hit game. Freeman then chased Braves starter Spencer Schwellenbach (who entered with a sub-3.00 ERA) with an RBI single to left, with Betts staying on his feet all the way home to score just before being tagged at the plate.
“We just kept adding and adding,” Freeman explained.
And then, as the clock approached midnight, Braves reliever Aaron Bummer helped their cause by immediately turning into a pumpkin.
His first batter, Hernández, hit a dribbler up the first-base line, which Bummer initially fielded but then dropped while attempting to transfer the ball to his throwing hand for a flip to first. Bummer quickly retrieved the ball again and turned toward home, while Freeman made a wide turn around third. But his throw was off-line, sailing over catcher Sean Murphy’s head, allowing Freeman to score easily.
Hernández also took second on the play, setting up Will Smith for an RBI single in the following at-bat.
It was late Saturday night baseball at its sloppy, messy best.
Sasaki did not make it easy for himself after the delayed first pitch.
He had to leave two runners stranded in the first, with the latter reaching on a two-out walk. In the second inning, he hung a slider to Ozzie Albies for a leadoff single before giving up a run to Eli White on a half-swing double to right. Another two-out walk increased stress in the third. Despite taking the mound with a 7-1 lead in the fourth, he allowed Albies’ leadoff homer and Nick Allen’s one-out RBI double, prompting pitching coach Mark Prior to call a mound meeting.
“I thought [in] the fourth inning he started to waver a little bit with his command,” Roberts recalled. “But it was really important for him to get through that fifth inning.”
Indeed, as the 23-year-old right-hander has done throughout his up-and-down season, Sasaki was able to limit the damage and regroup before returning to the mound for a clean fifth inning, securing his first victory.
“I’m just relieved that I was able to do what I was supposed to do as a starting pitcher, knowing the circumstances,” Sasaki said through interpreter Will Ireton. “Knowing the fact that we were gonna play [later] today.”
Even though the game didn’t end until 1:26 a.m. local time, the Dodgers maintained an important postgame tradition. As they do with all of their young pitchers who win their first game, the team showered Sasaki with an assortment of unspecified liquids in the clubhouse.
“A lot was thrown on me,” Sasaki said, smiling.
That it came at the end of such a long day, Freeman added with a laugh, “we might have celebrated a little bit harder.”
