There is an old baseball saying that has been around for decades. And even though it was (reportedly) first uttered in 1963, its mantra is as old as the game itself:

“Good pitching will always beat good hitting.”

But if good pitching always beats good hitting, imagine what it can do to bad hitting.

You don’t have to look long or hard to find the answer that one.

On Tuesday night, the Dodgers, who are currently the best hitting team in all baseball, came up against good (great) pitching by 28-year-old Atlanta Braves left-hander Max Fried. How good (great), you ask? How about no-hitting the Dodgers for a perfect five innings.

The Santa Monica, CA native and first-round draft pick in 2012 by the San Diego Padres out of Harvard-Westlake High School in Los Angeles finally gave up a line-drive single to right field by Dodgers third baseman Hanser Alberto to lead off the sixth inning.

“I think he did a good job of game-planning; they did a good job,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Fried’s good pitching. “I think that they flipped the script, he was pretty much all arm-side, you know, some fastballs in to righties, but he was arm-side and used his secondaries really well, mainly the change-up.”

Indeed he did. In fact, Fried finished his 7.0 innings of work allowing only those two hits with no walks and eight strikeouts. Sixty-two of his 93 total pitches were strikes (66.7%).

Across the diamond, 27-year-old Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler was not ‘good.’

“I need to get a little bit sharper, make some better pitches in counts” Buehler told reporters postgame. “I don’t think there’s any excuse for it. We’re here, and I just gotta be better.”

All of this said, the game wasn’t without its good Dodgers moments. In addition to the hits by Alberto and Turner, Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts made a spectacular sliding catch with two outs and runners at the corners in the top of the seventh inning to rob Braves third baseman Austin Riley of what would have been at least an RBI single and quite possibly a two-RBI double.

All of this brings to mind yet another famous baseball saying credited to and often used by former Dodgers Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully:

“Good is not good when better is expected.”

Play Ball!

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