The Dodgers and Atlanta Braves will conduct workouts at Truist Park in Cumberland, Georgia Monday, preparing for Tuesday’s resumption of their National League Division Series.
The Braves tied the best-of-five series at one game a piece Sunday night with a 3-2 victory at Dodger Stadium as three relievers limited the Dodgers to one baserunner over the final five innings.
“Getting the split in this place against these guys, yeah, it’s awesome,” Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said after Sunday’s game. “Yesterday we talked about our pen being not at full strength and not chasing — not being in position to chase a game from behind yesterday. I think losing the way we did yesterday allowed us to do what we did tonight and gain the split.”
The Dodgers had runners on first and second with no outs in the fifth, trailing 2-1, when Robert Suarez relieved Dylan Lee and retired the next three batters.
Rookie right-hander Didier Fuentes took the mound for the Braves to start the bottom of the sixth and retired the first 11 batters he faced, striking out three, until Max Muncy hit his 3-2 four-seam fastball an estimated 397 feet over the right center field fence with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
Raisel Iglesias relieved Fuentes and induced rookie pinch-hitter Josue De Paula to foul out to third baseman Austin Riley to end the game.
The 3 2/3 innings Fuentes pitched were the second-most in his 61 regular-season and postseason relief appearances, behind only the four innings he pitched against the Kansas City Royals on March 29.
Weiss said that when Fuentes entered the game in the sixth inning, Weiss said his plan was “most likely” to have Fuentes and Iglesias each pitch two innings to close out the game “but Didi was throwing the ball so well, I didn’t want to mess with that.”
“After his third inning, I looked at our pitching coach, let’s see how he feels,” Weiss said, referring to Jeremy Hefner. “If he feels good enough, I want to send him back out. I didn’t want to mess with a good thing. He was throwing the ball really well.
“I was going to give him one base runner. It was hitter to hitter in the ninth. He happened to get two quick outs. I was going to Iglesias the first hitter that got on. Gave up the homer to Muncy, and that obviously was time. But I don’t want to get in the way of a good thing.”
The 11 consecutive batters the 21-year-old Colombian retired Sunday marked the longest streak by a reliever 21 or younger in a postseason game in MLB history, according to OptaSTATS, a sports analytics firm.
No reliever 21 or younger has had a streak that long in a regular-season game since April 12, 1989 when Tom Gordon retired 11 in a row.
Atlanta took the lead for good in the fifth inning when Michael Harris II tripled with two outs and scored three pitches later when Kris Bubic’s 84.3 mph sweeper went off the mitt of catcher Will Smith for a wild pitch.
The Braves added an insurance run in the seventh when Harris’ two-out double drove in Matt Olson who had singled with one out.
Atlanta took its first lead of the series in the first. Ronald Acuña singled off Blake Snell with one out and stole second. The Braves loaded the bases on back-to-back walks to Olson and Ozzie Albies. Harris II fouled out to third baseman Miguel Rojas for the second out.
Acuña scored on Mauricio Dubón’s infield single in front of a crowd announced at 50,729.
The Dodgers tied the score when Freddie Freeman hit a 2-2 slider from Grant Holmes an estimated 375 feet into the right field pavilion leading off the bottom of the fourth.
Both teams had six hits. Harris had three hits. Freeman went 2-for-4 with a second-inning single to be the only Dodger with multiple hits.
The Dodgers left seven runners on base, the Braves 11.
The Dodgers were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, Atlanta 1-for-6.
All seven Dodger runs in the series have come on home runs.
Dodger starter Blake Snell was relieved by Brock Stewart after pitching 3 2/3 innings, allowing one run, three hits, walking five and striking out five.
Manager Dave Roberts said the left groin tightness Snell suffered on Sept. 16 was not a factor in his short stint Sunday.
“He just was fighting himself with his delivery all game,” Roberts said. “I think the fastball was really good. The change-up was good at times. I think in total didn’t have fastball command, didn’t have slider command, and the change-up wasn’t there. He was pulling it.
“I think that just overall it wasn’t the groin. He just wasn’t sharp tonight.”
Shohei Ohtani was 1-for-4 with two strikeouts Sunday after going 1-for-4 in Saturday’s 5-3 victory in Game 1
“If you look at the at-bats, there’s a lot of chase,” Roberts said. “It’s hard to square up, put good swings on balls that are out of the zone. That’s kind of what it boils down to.
“I haven’t heard anything other than he feels fine. So I don’t know if he’s trying to do too much because he doesn’t feel perfect. This time of year … no one feels perfect. He’s doing the best he can.
“He’ll be in there Game 3, and we’ve just got to, again, take good at-bats and expect the best.”
The victory “kind of instills some confidence in us and gives us some momentum going back to Atlanta as well,” Braves designated hitter Drake Baldwin said.
The temperature was 95 degrees when Snell threw the game’s first pitch at 5:03 p.m., the Dodgers announced.