Dodgers beat Braves, run season-opening winning streak to 6 games
LOS ANGELES — The parties are over for now. The winning continues.
The Dodgers started the season celebrating baseball’s global appeal in Tokyo then their own achievements at home. With no pre-game ceremony on Monday night, they just went to work, beating the Atlanta Braves, 6-1, behind a combined four-hitter from Tyler Glasnow and the bullpen.
The Dodgers have started the season 6-0 for the first time since 1981. They have not started a season with a longer winning streak since 1955, when the Brooklyn team started 10-0.
“I’ve got the under on that one,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of fans who started chanting “162-0” during the game. “I think I said this a couple days ago but we’re still not really playing great. We haven’t synced things up. But we’re still finding ways to win. And it’s good our guys are focusing on each night and trying to win a ballgame.”
The Dodgers trailed at some point during four of their first five victories. Not Monday. They scored twice in the first inning against Braves starter Grant Holmes (the Dodgers’ first-round pick in the 2014 draft), twice more in the third and never trailed.
Shohei Ohtani walked to start the bottom of the first inning then rode home on Teoscar Hernandez’s two-run home run, a 436-foot drive to straightaway center field.
It was just the fourth hit in the first six games for Hernandez. But two were home runs, one a double and he has driven in eight runs already this season.
In the third inning, Mookie Betts reached on an infield single, Hernandez drew a walk and Michael Conforto doubled to drive in a run. Tommy Edman’s fly ball to the warning track in center field drove in another.
Holmes labored through four innings and the Dodgers welcomed Braves reliever Enyel De Los Santos with three hits and another run in the fifth, Will Smith driving it in with a two-out single.
Two of the Dodgers’ former MVPs — Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts — have each played just three of the first six games. But the supporting cast has stepped up. Hernandez, Conforto, Edman and Smith have combined to drive in 20 of the Dodgers’ 36 runs in six games.
Kiké Hernandez hit their 14th home run of the season, a 412-foot drive into the left-field pavilion leading off the sixth inning.
“It certainly speaks to the depth,” Roberts said. “I think Tommy’s got some big hits. Teo’s got some big hits with guys in scoring position. Teo started us off tonight with the big hit.
“Obviously we’ve got a lot of depth. We’ve got a lot of good players. So when you lose Freddie or Mookie, you can backfill with guys. Kiké hadn’t played in a while and comes in, hits a homer. So it’s just really nice when you can look up and down the roster and plug in some guys that are certainly formidable.”
Tyler Glasnow is formidable on the mound when healthy. Making his first start since August 11, he cruised through the winless (0-5) Braves’ lineup – depleted by the continued absence of Ronald Acuña Jr. (yet to return from last year’s knee injury) and the 80-game suspension of Jurickson Profar (announced before the game Monday).
“It was awesome,” Glasnow said of getting back on the mound. “It was cool in spring obviously, it’s just a little different in the regular season. It’s just nice to be home and pitching in Dodger Stadium. Just the energy is unmatched. I think walking out for the first inning and grabbing the ball, it was like a very cool moment.”
Glasnow walked back-to-back batters to start the second inning and Matt Olson to start the fourth. But he didn’t give up a hit until Jarred Kelenic’s one-out, ground-ball single in the fifth inning.
Glasnow struck out five of the first 11 Braves batters and eight in his five scoreless innings. He got 13 swings-and-misses (seven on his curveball) and 17 more called strikes.
After missing the final two months of the regular season and all of the playoffs with a sprained elbow last year, Glasnow changed “a ton of stuff” in his routine (no more weighted balls, longer long toss) and mechanics (to his hand position and spine angle) in his latest attempt to stay healthy for a full season.
“My body just feels a lot better,” he said. “It’s moving more fluid. All those little changes throughout my throwing routine and grips have been really helpful so far. I feel really good.
“I think after I got hurt the first time it’s like, you keep messing around with stuff and try to fix things and I think this year it’s an accumulation of everything. … Everything this spring has been all tailored around this and all the adjustments we’ve made have really been working.”
Jack Dreyer and Alex Vesia continued the shutout through the seventh inning but Tanner Scott gave up a home run to Michael Harris II leading off the eighth. That ended a stretch of 29 scoreless innings for the Braves’ offense.