Today's Three Things: Braves get demolished by LA's 'Big Three'

The Atlanta Braves got destroyed by the trio of future Hall-of-Famers in the Dodgers lineup

The Atlanta Braves got obliterated by the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-3, in Truist Park on Saturday night.¹

Here’s Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

LA’s 4th inning.

The Braves were in a hole, but a manageable one - it was 3-1 Dodgers. It wouldn’t stay manageable.

The Dodgers put up four more runs in the inning to put this one away, and the way it happened was both predictable and frustrating.

After two quick outs, Shohei Ohtani continued his hot day with a rocket (110 mph) up the middle for a single, coming off a center-cut cutter that wasn’t supposed to be in the middle of the strike zone. Mookie Betts quickly drove him in with a 103.6 mph liner into the left field corner, that one coming off a down-and-in slider. Freddie Freeman then does what he does so well, taking a 3-2 four-seamer off the plate down and away and just shooting it to through the left side, scoring Betts from second.

LA wasn’t done, but Schwellenbach was - Atlanta lifted him for groundball specialist Aaron Bummer. The move didn’t pay off, though, as Bummer induced the soft contact but promptly threw it away. Freeman scored and Teoscar Hernández advanced to second, later scoring on a Will Smith single through the right side.

Five hits in the inning, four being hard-hit balls, and LA got four runs out of it. The defensive error didn’t help, and it wasn’t the only misplay in the field for Atlanta, but LA definitely earned the runs tonight.

The earlier misplay was an attempted double play turn by Matt Olson in the 2nd inning. He fired to second before anyone was there to cover the bag and Ozzie Albies stepped in front of Nick Allen to take the throw. With his momentum taking him away from second base and his league-worst non-first-base arm, Atlanta couldn’t convert the double play and LA got on the board. Not an official error, but you’d much rather have Allen with momentum towards first taking that throw rather than Ozzie.)

For the game, LA’s ‘Big Three” of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman went 8-13 with 2 homers, a double, eight runs, & six RBI. Nine of their twelve batted balls were hard-hit, including seven over 99 mph.

Today’s Player of the Game

Trust me, I’m as surprised as you are: Ozzie Albies

For as much as I’ve dogged him this season, he had some good at-bats tonight. His first plate appearance in the 2nd inning was a seven-pitch at-bat where he swung at four pitches in the zone and laid off the three balls, including a very close second pitch that was called low. He was rewarded with a single up the middle, promptly stealing second base and scoring on Eli White’s triple.

Ozzie’s next at-bat was with a 7-1 deficit, but he led off the bottom of the 4th and took two close fastballs before launching an elevated fastball into the Chop House for Atlanta’s second run of the game.

While it wasn’t a perfect game for Ozzie, with the aforementioned defensive miscue (that’s defensible, as he couldn’t see Allen charging to the bag) and a pop-up to end the 5th inning, it was better than we’ve seen in a while.

(And even that pop-up was good process - seven pitch at-bat and he laid off the three balls, taking one and fouling two balls off in the zone before the miss on the fastball.)

What You’ll Be Talking About

What’s wrong with Spencer Schwellenbach?

Spencer was officially tagged for six runs on eight hits in 3.2 innings. With the caveat that this one was against the best team in the National League, this continues a recent trend of struggles for Schwelly:

4/15 vs TOR: 4.2 IP, 6H (6ER), 2BB/3Ks w/ 2 homers allowed
4/21 vs STL: 7IP, 8H, 3R (2ER), 0BB/5Ks
4/27 vs ARI: 6IP, 7H, 4R (3ER), 1BB/6Ks w/ 1 homer allowed
5/3 vs LAD: 3.2 IP, 8H, 6R (6ER), 1BB/4Ks w/ 1 homer allowed

Understanding that two of those were still quality starts, that’s still a 7.17 ERA and four homers allowed in his last 21.1 innings pitched.

More concerning is the hard-hit balls, honestly. LA had twelve of them in this game, including nine of 99mph or harder. It’s the fourth consecutive start in which he’s allowed at least seven 99 mph or harder exit velo batted balls.

In his first 24 career starts, it happened a total of four times.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll dive into the numbers after the series and see if I can figure it out.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s going to try to avoid getting swept on national television - ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball is in the house. It’s a 7:10 PM ET first pitch with Bryce Elder (1-1, 5.33) versus Dustin May (1-1, 3.95).

1. Technically Sunday morning - this game opened in a rain delay and had a first pitch time of 10:15 PM ET. Per Atlanta’s comms team, this is the latest-ever start for a game played at Truist Park and the latest since August 9, 2014, when a matchup against Washington in Turner Field started at 10:51 PM ET.