Michael Harris II should not have been 90 feet away from the runner in first place.
But it was Atlanta star Teoscar Hernandez who left the field after the Dodgers took a bad route to his triple-double. Then, to make matters worse, he lost control of Kris Bubic’s anal fist with his left hand. It flew high and outside, the ball was caught by Will Smith and landed on the grass bank behind home plate.
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Harry standing torn. And the Dodgers handed the lead to the Braves.
The Dodgers had all the advantages heading into Game 2 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night. In a 3-2 loss even in the series, they had every line.
Read more: NLDS Game 2 recap: Braves beat Dodgers, tie series
“It’s an opportunity for us to not let our pitching staff go up in the air,” manager Dave Roberts said last week, when asked how the Braves would handle their pitching staff coming off their wild-card streak. “We have… the ability to expose them, if we take the right approach and the right approach.”
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Braves left-hander Ray Kerr, who excelled as a long reliever, was opening his second straight bullpen game and third in the postseason. And for the second straight day, the Dodgers stopped scoring against the Braves’ opener or even ran their count to get him out of the first game.
The Dodgers managed just two hits off Kerr, each to open the inning. Freddie Freeman lined a single into right field to kick off the second inning. And Miguel Rojas sent a double into the left field corner to start the third.
Both Dodgers disappointed.
The failure to bring in Rojas was particularly egregious. Tommy Edman will immediately pop up. Then Mookie Betts, the Dodgers’ second baseman just before Kerr surrendered the ball with two outs in the third inning, drew a four-pitch walk. Shohei Ohtani came up with two overs and popped up with a big double in the full count. The final blow was to Kerr’s face.
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So the Dodgers offense of the Braves went up for air. And Dodgers shortstop Blake Snell moved the advantage.
His first inning could have been a bigger blow. With one out, Snell gave Ronaldo Acuña Jr. a single. and walked Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies to load the bases. In the middle, Mauricio Dubón was only scored on the base. Betts made a short stop dive but had no chance on Dubón’s throw.
Snell then struck out Sean Murphy to end the inning, finishing the at-bat with three straight strikeouts.
A single failure could be erased. And the damage was done in the pitch count, up to 27 in that inning.
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Snell gave up one more hit, but when he walked in the fifth with two outs in the fourth inning, his pitch count was up to 630. Roberts heads towards him from the dugout. Snell had lasted just one inning longer than the Braves’ opener.
In the bottom half of the inning, Freeman, who was hoping to shake off his September slump over the bye week, tied the score with a homer. In the fifth, the Dodgers took the lead back to the Braves.
With two outs, on an 0-and-2 count, Bubic got Harris to move the ball away from him. Harris leaned over his bat, sent it to her and drove it into the left field corner.
Hernández took turns grabbing the ball, trying to cut it off, and then adjusting back when it became clear that it was too shallow. He was left with just inches of the ball alone, and the wall pulled down, allowing Harris to reach third base, where he used a wild pitch.
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The Braves extended their lead in the seventh inning against a hard hitting right-hander by Edgardo Henriquez, who gave up a single to Olson and an RBI double to Harris.
Then right-hander Roki Sasaki singled in the eighth with Acuña at the plate with the bases loaded, but a double play got him out of it. Sasaki then retired in the ninth round.
On the other hand, the Dodgers’ offense barely threatened in the late innings. Braves relievers retired 15 of the last 16 batters to end the game, including Max Muncy’s solo home run in the ninth.
Rookie Joshua De Paula made his postseason debut as a pinch hitter with two outs in the ninth. popped up in foul territory to end the game.
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Next, the series heads to Atlanta for two games, with Braves All-Star Chris Sale starting Game 3 against Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
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This story first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.