After a long Saturday night marked by a three-hour rain delay and a game that didn’t start until after 10 p.m., the Dodgers came up short in a 4-3 loss to the Braves on Sunday. Despite arriving back at their hotel in the early morning hours, the team refused to blame fatigue for their sluggish performance.
Freddie Freeman dismissed the notion that the late night impacted their offense, stating that they had their chances and credited Atlanta’s pitching. The loss ended a seven-game win streak for the Dodgers and marked their first defeat in six games against the Braves this season.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts acknowledged that Braves starter Bryce Elder, despite a 5.33 ERA, kept the Dodgers off balance with a solid slider and unusual arm slot. Elder stifled the Dodgers early, retiring the first eight batters and limiting the heart of the lineup — Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freeman — who had dominated the previous night. Elder lasted five innings, allowing just two runs.
The Dodgers struggled with runners in scoring position, going 0-for-10, a sharp contrast to their previous offensive outburst. Max Muncy drove in a run in the fourth, and another scored in the sixth, but it wasn’t enough to counteract Austin Riley’s two home runs off Dustin May. Riley’s blasts in the first and third innings provided all of Atlanta’s runs. May otherwise held the Braves to just three hits and struck out six.
The Dodgers pulled within one run in the seventh on a pinch-hit homer from Miguel Rojas. In the ninth, Hyeseong Kim’s speed put the tying run on third, but Raisel Iglesias struck out Rojas and Austin Barnes to end the game. Roberts opted not to squeeze bunt with Kim on third, trusting Rojas to make contact.
“It was a tough one,” Rojas said. “We had our shot but came up short.”
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