Ha-Seong Kim hadn’t had a hit since June 3 and only that one in 50 major-league plate appearances since May 23, spending the summer giving the Atlanta Braves reason to regret the one-year, $20 million contract they gave him in January — just before he injured his hand when he slipped on ice in his native Korea.
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But Kim stroked a walk-off single into left field in the ninth inning off Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott to give the Atlanta Braves a 6-5 victory over the Dodgers on Wednesday night.
Along the way, they also lost Roki Sasaki from their rotation for the time being. Sasaki left the game in the fourth inning with a blister on the middle finger of his right hand. “Given the severity” of the blister and the skin that peeled away, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sasaki will be placed on the Injured List to let it heal. Eric Lauer will take his spot in the starting rotation.
“This was a tough one. I thought we had a really good chance to win this game,” Roberts said.
“I just think that it’s a tough loss. And then obviously you’re staring down Chris Sale tomorrow to salvage (a win in) the series, so it’s certainly not a comfortable position. But we’re gonna go out there and try to salvage the series.”
Kim’s two-out, game-winning hit came on the eighth pitch of his at-bat — all fastballs from Scott who was also the losing pitcher Tuesday night in Atlanta.
“I think I threw too many fastballs, and especially down and in is probably not good,” Scott said.
“I just thought the fastball was good and just yanked one down.”
The back-to-back one-run losses to the Braves have dropped the Dodgers two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in the National League while the Braves have moved two games behind the Dodgers for the second seed (and hold the tiebreaker, having now clinched the season series).
Playoff seeding might be on the table during this series. But the Dodgers have failed to play playoff-level baseball in the first two games.
“The base hit by Kim ended the game, but it’s not what cost us the game,” Roberts said. “There’s a lot of plays that lead up to circumstances, whether it be defensively, offensively, that sort of come to pass when you don’t execute. So, yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot of things that we got to keep getting better at.”
Most of them were on display Wednesday — starting with their outfield defense.
Benched on Tuesday for his lack of offensive production, Teoscar Hernandez’s defense cost the Dodgers in the fourth inning when the Braves scored three times to erase an early Dodger lead.
The Braves’ rally started against Sasaki but ended against reliever Edgardo Henriquez after Sasaki came out of the game with the blister on the middle finger of his right hand.
Sasaki gave up a solo home run to Matt Olson in the first inning and four hits in the first two, but he went into the fourth with a 3-1 lead thanks to Tommy Edman’s two-run home run in the third.
But Sasaki walked Ozzie Albies to start the inning and gave up a single to Mike Yastrzemski, putting runners at the corners with no outs.
Austin Riley drove in one run with a sacrifice fly and Sean Murphy doubled, putting runners at second and third with one out. That’s when Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior, Roberts, a trainer and an interpreter all gathered on the mound with Sasaki. He came out of the game.
“When I was facing the first hitter in the fourth inning, I actually didn’t feel anything coming beforehand,” Sasaki said through his interpreter. “My skin just ripped off, and after that it kind of (got) worse.”
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Henriquez replaced Sasaki and got ahead of Drake Baldwin, 1-and-2. But Baldwin fought his way back into a full count. The eighth pitch was a 99-mph fastball off the plate, outside to the left-handed Baldwin. He got the bat on it and drove a fly ball into the left-field corner.
Hernandez ran over but overran the ball. He reached back near the foul line but came up empty and it dropped in fair territory. Two runs scored on the misplay, flipping the score in the Braves’ favor.
“Balls typically that go into the corner … will go back to the field,” Roberts said. “He got in the corner and just overran it.”
The Braves made it a 5-3 lead when Sean Murphy hit a solo home run off Lauer in the sixth.
The bottom half of the Dodgers’ lineup produced those first three runs – an RBI single by Hunter Feduccia to drive in Tommy Edman, who had doubled, in the second inning and a two-run homer by Edman in the third.
But it was the MVP seating section of the lineup – a combined 2 for 15 in Tuesday’s loss – that got the game tied in the seventh.
Shohei Ohtani led off with a double, hustling into second when Ronald Acuña Jr. bluffed throwing behind him. Singles by Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts pushed across one run, and back-to-back walks of Max Muncy and Edman forced the tying run home.
But the Dodgers made nothing more of the bases-loaded situation. The runners held when Kyle Tucker flew out to left field and the inning ended when Alek Thomas bounced into a double play.
The Dodgers loaded the bases again in the eighth but came up empty when Muncy chased a splitter out of the strike zone on the ninth-pitch of his at-bat against reliever Didier Fuentes.
“He’s known for his fastball. That’s his pitch,” Muncy said. “He wasn’t throwing anything else for a strike in that situation. He has one of the best fastballs that I’ve seen. I know maybe the velo numbers don’t say it but just the way that he throws it and the way it comes in there it’s one of the better fastballs that I’ve seen.
“In that situation, you’re trying to battle and you have to eliminate pitches in your mind. You don’t think he’s going to go to a pitch that he can’t throw for a strike – and he didn’t throw it for a strike. I just chased it. He made a good pitch. In that situation it’s hard to sit there and say I have to protect against everything when he’s got a fastball like that.”
Muncy’s strikeout stranded the last of 11 runners left on base by the Dodgers in the game.
“We had a lot of opportunities throughout the whole game so it’s hard to pinpoint just one,” Muncy said. “If we do our job on any of those opportunities, it’s a different outcome. Obviously the bases loaded ones look worse but there were plenty of opportunities throughout the whole game.”
The Braves returned the favor, wasting their own bases-loaded opportunity in the bottom of the eighth against Brock Stewart. Mauricio Dubon’s ground ball up the middle was deflected by a diving Betts right to Edman at second base to start an inning-ending double play.
In the ninth, though, the Braves put together a two-out rally against Scott, starting with a Lane Thomas double. The Dodgers intentionally walked Austin Riley, bringing up the pitcher’s spot (the Braves had lost the DH an inning earlier). So Kim brought his .066 season average to plate as a pinch-hitter and singled on a full count to drive in the deciding run.
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