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ATLANTA — The national anthem had been sung. A sold-out crowd was in its seats. The field was raked, chalked and ready for baseball.
More than three hours later, the first pitch was finally thrown.
What was scheduled as a 7:15 p.m. local start at Truist Park in Atlanta on Friday didn’t actually kick off until 10:21 p.m., with the Dodgers and Braves getting delayed by a thunderstorm that rolled in shortly after the game was supposed to begin.
The three-plus hour delay could have been enough to force a cancellation, and trigger a doubleheader on Sunday. But with the Braves already in the midst of a 17-straight-game stretch, the Dodgers were instead asked to “hunker down,” as manager Dave Roberts quipped before the game, and wait.
The corresponding move for Hyeseong Kim’s call-up was utilityman Tommy Edman going on the injured list because of a right ankle injury.
“I think that the Braves and Major League Baseball were very motivated to play tonight,” Roberts said.
“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 OK. We’re here, we might as well play it.”
The Dodgers ultimately did play, and rolled to a 10-3 win, as well, looking unfazed by the weather, the conditions or a late night that stretched into the early hours of Sunday morning before their seventh straight victory was finally complete.
“Give credit to our guys, just to stay focused,” Roberts said. “We came out with some intent tonight.”
Despite the long delay, Roki Sasaki survived his latest big-league test, dancing in and out of danger in a five-inning, three-run start for his first MLB win.
Freeman and Shohei Ohtani hit home runs; Ohtani to break an early 1-1 tie in the third, Freeman to put the game out of reach in the eighth.
Most of all, a Dodgers team that spent most of the opening month trying to get synced up on the mound and at the plate — despite still posting the best record in the majors — continued to round into increasingly dominant form, inching ever 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’ third double-digit run total in their last four games. “The offense has obviously been swinging the bat really well.”
Few sequences better exemplified that than the crooked numbers the Dodgers (23-10) posted in the third and fourth innings.
In the third, the Dodgers played both long-ball and small-ball to produce two runs. Ohtani led off with his eighth home run, launching a towering solo blast to straightaway center field. Then, Betts hit a single, took second base on a hit-and-run play that likely would’ve resulted in a double-play grounder otherwise, and scored when Teoscar Hernández snuck a ground ball through the infield — giving Hernández his 33rd RBI to tie Aaron Judge for the MLB lead.
In the fourth, their offense went station-to-station in a four-run rally, all of the runs coming with two outs. Ohtani roped a single to center to get the threat started. Betts followed with an RBI double down the left-field line, marking his fourth-straight multi-hit game. Freeman then chased Braves starter Spencer Schwellenbach (who entered with a sub-3.00 ERA) with an RBI single to left, Betts staying on his feet all the way home to score just ahead of a tag at the plate.
“We just kept adding and adding and adding,” Freeman said.
And then, with the clock ticking toward midnight, Braves reliever Aaron Bummer aided their cause by immediately turning into a pumpkin.
The Los Angeles Dodgers actually have one of the best records in baseball but no one seems to be too thrilled by it. Injuries, question marks and hitters not hitting are issues.
His first batter, Hernández, hit a dribbler up the first-base line that Bummer initially fielded, but then dropped while trying to transfer the ball to his throwing hand for a flip to first base. Bummer quickly retrieved the ball again, and turned toward home with Freeman taking a wide turn around third. But his throw there was off-line, sailing over catcher Sean Murphy’s head to allow Freeman to score with ease.
Hernández also took second on the play, setting up Will Smith for an RBI single in the next at-bat.
It was late Saturday night baseball, at its sloppily, messy finest.
Sasaki didn’t make life easy on himself after waiting around for the delayed first pitch.
He had to strand two runners in the first, the latter of which reached on a two-out walk. He hung a slider to Ozzie Albies for a leadoff single in the second, then gave up a run when Eli White hit a half-swing double the other way to right. Another two-out walk created more stress in the third. And despite taking the mound with a 7-1 lead in the fourth, he gave up a leadoff homer to Albies and a one-out RBI double to Nick Allen, prompting a mound meeting from pitching coach Mark Prior.
“I thought [in] the fourth inning he started to waver a little bit with his command,” Roberts said. “But it was really important for him to get through that fifth inning.”
Indeed, as the 23-year-old right-hander has made a habit of during his up-and-down campaign, Sasaki managed to limit the damage there and regroup, returning to the mound for a clean fifth inning that qualified him for 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 didn’t abandon one important postgame tradition. As they do with all their young pitchers who earn a first-career win, the team serenaded Sasaki with a shower of all manner 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.”
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