Dodgers 1 Braves 8: Everything Was Horrible

There are some games when hitting, pitching and defense are all perfect. The Dodgers’ first game in Atlanta was the exact opposite of that.

In Alex Wood‘s first start of the season, he cruised through four innings in San Francisco before everything fell apart in the fifth. In Wood’s second start, he started off a bit rough, but found a groove and dominated the Diamondbacks through seven innings.

In start number three, Wood started off bad and ended worse against the Atlanta Braves. Wood gave up two in the first on three singles, a walk and a sac fly. The Braves added two more in the third aided by a Justin Turner error and two more in the fourth, aided by a Corey Seager error and a passed ball. In all, the Dodgers committed three errors and had a wild pitch and a passed ball.

Wood wasn’t sharp at all, but the defense behind him didn’t do much to help. Even with poor pitching and defense, it was a moot point as the offense couldn’t get anything going off Williams Perez. Perez was throwing on three days’ rest, but had a no-hitter going into the fourth before Adrian Gonzalez knocked a one-out single. Yasiel Puig followed it up with a single and the Braves pulled Perez for Ryan Weber, who got out of the inning unscathed. The Dodgers got a run in the fifth, but

Looking for some positives for this game, Joc Pederson had one of the best plate appearances of his career. Joc saw 11 pitches, as he fought off four pitches foul and drew a walk to lead off the third. Adrian Gonzalez had a couple hits, and Corey Seager almost hit two home runs in one plate appearance, but the first went foul and the second was caught at the warning track. For the most part, the bullpen was pretty solid as well. Adam Liberatore tossed a perfect inning, Yimi Garcia allowed a hit but got a double play with some help from Gonzalez. Louis Coleman got burned by an error and gave up another hit, J.P. Howell threw a wild pitch and gave up a single. The bullpen’s scoreless inning streak ended at 16, but it still looked to have guys that can get outs.

Games like this are bound to happen. The Dodgers probably (hopefully) won’t commit three errors in a game again this season (they had committed four in 14 games prior to tonight), the offense probably won’t get stonewalled by a random pitcher coming off three day’s rest. It happens. As long as the Dodgers don’t make a habit of poor hitting, poor defense and poor starting pitching, we can just write this game off as a loss and look on to tomorrow.

Ross Stripling will get the ball tomorrow. Julio Teheran is scheduled to get the ball for the Braves, but he was scratched from today’s start with a fever.

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