Dodgers, not Braves, are the team to beat in October

Don’t make too much of their recent troubles scoring runs. Or how they have a bunch of old players on their roster. Or how it feels as if you have a better chance of seeing a dinosaur at Dodger Stadium these days than a Shohei Ohtani homer.

Regardless of what happens in the regular season, the Dodgers will be the team to beat in October.

Just as they were last year. And the year before that.

You never want to make too much of a regular-season game, particularly one that’s six weeks into a 162-game schedule, but their 3-1 victory over the Braves was more than a win.

The triumph was a reminder of why the Dodgers are the two-time defending World Series champions.

Brighten the lights, raise the stakes, improve the quality of pitching, and the Dodgers will show they have a little something no other team has.

“I don’t know what it is about this team,” shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “When a big series comes up, we always find a way to lock in and play our game.”

And this was as big a series that could be played at this stage of the season.

The Braves came into Los Angeles tied with the Yankees and Cubs for the best record in baseball.

Their scheduled starters for the series resembled a postseason rotation, with reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale on Friday, Spencer Strider on Saturday and Bryce Elder on Sunday. Strider and Elder are former All-Stars.

What unfolded in the series opener was reminiscent of many of the games the Dodgers have played in recent postseasons.

“Tonight was a typical October game in the sense of, you’re going to see really good pitching, on the margins you gotta be able to take advantage of mistakes,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You gotta prevent runs and use the arms in the ‘pen that you got. And we prevented runs tonight and got enough hits. So, yeah, similar to an October game.”

Including the result.

The Dodgers predictably didn’t have many chances against the left-handed Sale, who came into the game with a 6-1 record and 2.14 earned-run average. But when opportunities presented themselves, the Dodgers capitalized. And when the Braves made mistakes, the Dodgers pounced.

In the second inning, Kyle Tucker pulled a slider beneath the strike zone into the right-field corner for a double that drove in Teoscar Hernandez from first base. 

The game remained deadlocked at 1-1 until the fifth inning when Rojas reached base and advanced to second on a throwing error by shortstop Jim Jarvis. Rojas scored on a single to right by Ohtani.

An inning later, the Dodgers extended their lead to 3-1 when Freddie Freeman punished Sale for one of his few mistakes, a down-the-middle fastball that he sent over the wall in left-center field.

“The damage all came from our left-handed hitters today,” Rojas said. 

Roberts relied on his relievers the way he often does in the postseason. With two outs in the fifth inning and runners on the corners, Roberts removed starter Emmet Sheehan and called on fireman Alex Vesia, who forced Matt Olson to fly out to left field.

“There’s still a lot of time between now and October,” Roberts said. “But I think you can see the energy, sort of how I managed the game tonight. I wanted to win.”

Roberts didn’t mess around, and his bullpen wound up covering the final 4 ⅓ innings of the game.

Kyle Hurt pitched the sixth inning, Will Klein the seventh, Brock Stewart the eighth and Tanner Scott the ninth.

“You get a chance to beat Chris Sale,” Roberts said, “you gotta try to do everything you can.”

When reflecting on the relievers’ roles in the victory, Freeman mentioned how the bullpen was also forced to cover the final eight innings of a win on Houston on Wednesday after starter Tyler Glasnow was forced out of the game with back spasms. Glasnow was placed on the injured list on Friday.

“You’re playing against the team with the best record,” Freeman said. “They’ve been playing really good baseball. We obviously put together a really quality, quality game.”

The kind of quality game that delivers results in October.

The Dodgers still know how to win a game like that, no matter how much they have looked like a diminished version of themselves over the last six weeks.

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