Two words: ‘As Advertised’.

It was Game-1 of the four-game weekend series between the two best teams in Major League Baseball – the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves – in front of a Dodger Stadium crowd of 47, 623, and it was epic.

For many Dodgers fans, the game appeared to be over early. Although the Dodgers scored first on a first-inning ground out by Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy that allowed Dodgers first baseman and 2023 National League MVP hopeful Freddie Freeman to score from third base (having singled to center), the Braves, with the best record in all of baseball, answered soundly in the top of the second inning, scoring six runs off of a (very) ineffective Dodgers starting pitcher Lance Lynn, who gave up a grand slam home run to left-center field by Braves right fielder and 2023 National League MVP hopeful Ronald Acuña Jr. and a solo home run to center field by Braves third baseman Austin Riley in the inning.

“All in all I wasn’t a good tonight. I wasn’t comfortable, didn’t make pitches, and I cost us the game,” the Dodgers right-hander (accurately) said postgame.

The 36-year-old Indianapolis, IN native and first-round draft pick in 2008 by the St. Louis Cardinals out of the University of Mississippi, who the Dodgers acquire from the Chicago White Sox (along with former Dodgers right-hander Joe Kelly) in exchange for outfielder Trayce Thompson and minor leaguers Jordan Leasure and Nick Nastrini, allowed seven runs on seven hits (including three home runs), with two walks, one strikeout and a hit batsman in his 4.1 innings pitched, causing his already bad 5.56 ERA balloon to 5.81.

“I thought it was a really good ballgame, two really good ball clubs and we started off with a run and then they answered back with six,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said postgame. “And I think that if you turn to Lance, it wasn’t his best outing clearly. He didn’t have good stuff, his stuff wasn’t sharp, his execution wasn’t consistent, and the misses they took advantage of.”

But as they have done all season long, Roberts’ team battled back, scoring six additional runs in the eventual 8-7 Braves win. Three of those additional runs came on a three-run home run to right field by Dodgers second baseman and and 2023 National League MVP hopeful Mookie Betts, his 37th home run of the season and the 250th of his future Hall of Fame career.

Things got very interesting when, in the bottom of the bottom of the eighth, Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, who made a game-altering throwing error in the top of that fateful second inning, (sort of) atoned for his error with a solo home run to right field in the bottom of the eighth to pull the Dodgers to within one.

“You do something stupid on the field you can’t let it linger,” Muncy said of his costly game-changing error. “It happened, it’s over, you gotta move on, and you gotta make the next cool play hit at you, and you still got a chance to make an impact on the game.”

Muncy did almost that when he came within feet of walking it off in the bottom of the ninth, but instead flied out to deep right field.

Close, but no cigar.

Bring on Round-2!

Play Ball!

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