Braves bludgeon Dodgers, take 3-1 series advantage

LOS ANGELES — Don’t blame this one on Julio Urias. This game was lost three days ago when Dave Roberts decided to pitch his lefty out of the pen in Game 2 of the series with no backup plan. Now, barely 72 hours later, Urias gets put in to start, predictably gets shelled, and the Dodgers get beaten down 9-2 in a game that was over almost as soon as it started. It was as easy to foresee as the funnel cloud of an oncoming tornado. The Dodgers could only watch the storm approach and know that there was precious little they could do to stop it. Every bad decision of the first weekend of this series blew up in Dave Roberts face in this one. And somewhere Andrew Friedman is shaking his head and wondering why he didn’t trust the players that had got him there.

Urias starts, but gets rocked

The Braves had numerous offensive highlights in this one, but this is not a Braves blog, so don’t expect a blow by blow of every one of their twelve hits tonight. However, I will say this. Once Julio Urias gave up back-to-back jacks to Eddie Rosario and Adam Duvall in the second inning, the game was pretty much over.

Urias’s fastball had no life to it, and it seemed like all this unusual use of him in the postseason was finally starting to wear on him. In the game, he ended up going 5.0 innings on the night, which is respectable enough, but he gave up eight hits along the way. In addition to the the homers in the second, Freddie Freeman went deep in the third.

As if the three solo jacks weren’t bad enough, Urias also surrendered a second run in the third on a Joc Pederson single after a fielding miscue from Gavin Lux let a catchable ball drop in front of him for the RBI hit. The Braves tacked on one last run off Urias in the fifth on a sac fly from Adam Duvall. Urias’s final line on a very disappointing evening: 5.0 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 3 K.

Chavez and Smyly quiet Dodger bats

Meanwhile, the Dodgers offense was so non-existent that it made a couple of journeymen like Jesse Chavez and Drew Smyly look like All-Stars. The ex-Dodger Chavez was the opener in this one and pitched a scoreless first inning on just eleven pitches. Smyly, who’s bounced between the majors and minors for a decade, came through with three solid innings of relief before the Dodgers’ finally broke through with some runs in the fifth. However, by that time, the score was already 5-0, and the Dodgers’ potential for a second-straight comeback win looked rather dim indeed.

Dodgers put together a decent inning in the fifth for two runs

The one time the Dodgers looked like they had a pulse at the plate was in the bottom of the fifth inning. After being no-hit through four, the Dodgers got back-to-back one-out singles from Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger. Then, after a Chris Taylor flyout and a Cody Bellinger steal, the Dodgers had two men in scoring position for the first time (and the last) on the night. AJ Pollock came off the bench to pinch hit, and just as he had done before Bellinger’s big home run on Tuesday, Pollock found a hole in the infield defense and drilled a ground ball through it for a single. The hit plated two Dodger runs, and it was now 5-2 Braves.

Dodgers can’t solve the Braves pen

In this bullpen game for the Braves, only Smyly surrendered any runs. Everyone else hung a zero on the scoreboard. In all the Braves would use six pitchers in this one. In addition to Chavez and Smyly, Chris Martin, AJ Minter, Tyler Matzek, and (the other) Will Smith got the ball for Atlanta. Each of them holding the line against the scuffling Dodger lineup. The Dodgers only managed four hits on the night, and three of those hits were all strung together in the fifth. Other than that, it was the sounds of silence. With his 3.1 innings of bulk work, Smyly got the win in this one. Not bad for a guy who before this season hadn’t pitched a big league game in over five years.

Gonsolin gets rocked for another long ball in ninth

And, even though the Dodgers’ offense was basically dead in the water, the Braves decided to pile on a whole lot of insurance in the top of the ninth. Thanks to a three-run home run from hot-hitting Eddie Rosario (his second of the night), the Braves put up a four-spot on Tony Gonsolin, who had come on to finish the game. That Gonsolin is now being used for mop up duty in a lost cause blow out kind of shows you how far he has fallen down the Dodgers’ depth chart at the moment. Anyway, as Rosario rounded the bases, a stream of headlights had already formed outside Chavez Ravine, and this time, who could blame them?

Fried vs. the Dodgers bullpen in Game 5

At this point, the Dodgers are essentially a spent force. Cody Bellinger made a valiant effort to put the team on his back with a clutch home run on Tuesday, but it was all for naught. As the old saying goes, momentum is only as good as the next day’s starter, and in the case of the Dodgers, that meant not very good at all. This loss was especially costly because Justin Turner went down with a hamstring strain in the seventh inning when he hustled down the line trying to beat out a double play.

So now the Dodgers have the night to think about it. Do they want to fight for a win and a trip back to Atlanta for the weekend? Or do they want to just lie down and surrender? It’s their call. Either way, this game will go down as one of the most frustrating and disappointing in Dodger postseason history.