Nightmare beginning, dream ending

Ohtani hits walk-off home run on his bobblehead night. Down 5-0 in second inning, LA rallies for 6-5 triumph for 8-0 start

The Dodgers played their sloppiest game of the year and fell behind 5-0 in the second inning. But slowly and surely they chipped away. And Shohei Ohtani completed the comeback with a walk-off home run in the ninth inning, ending a 6-5 win over the Braves on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.

Down five runs incredibly early, the Dodgers chipped away with home runs by Tommy Edman in the second inning and Michael Conforto in the fourth to pull within a pair.

Max Muncy hit a two-out, two-run double in the eighth inning to tie the game, breathing a sigh of relief after just two hits in his first 24 at-bats this season, with 11 strikeouts.

Ben Casparius followed Snell with two scoreless innings, including escaping his own bases-loaded, no-out jam in the sixth to keep the deficit at two.

After Kirby Yates pitched a scoreless seventh, left-hander Jack Dreyer pitched scoreless baseball in the eighth and ninth. The latter matched Dreyer’s longest outing since the start of last season, and he earned his first major league win.

Nightmare beginning

Blake Snell wasn’t missing bats but was missing the strike zone, even if he and manager Dave Roberts disagreed, several times, with home plate umpire Tony Randazzo on the latter.

Atlanta scored two total runs in their previous four games and hadn’t scored multiple runs since last Friday in San Diego. But coupled with Snell’s poor start and execrable defense behind him, the Braves put up crooked numbers in each of the first two frames.

After not making a single error in their first six games, the Dodgers made up for lost time with their sloppiest game of the year in the series finale.

Muncy committed throwing errors in each of the first two innings, the first bringing home a run directly in the first inning and opening the door for a second. The second error opened the second inning, and later in the frame Andy Pages got turned around in center field and had a fly ball go off his glove that was scored a double, all part of a three-run frame.

After needing 59 pitches to get through the first two nightmare innings, Snell tacked on a pair of scoreless frames to get through four. But his night was done after 80 pitches, notching four walks against only two strikeouts in his second start in a row.

Somewhat hilariously, Snell’s ERA went down on Wednesday as all five runs were unearned.

Wednesday particulars

Home runs: Tommy Edman (4), Michael Conforto (1), Shohei Ohtani (3)

WP — Jack Dreyer (1-0): 2 IP, 1 strikeout

LP — Raisel Iglesias (0-1): 1 IP, 2 hits, 1 run, 2 strikeouts

Up next

Thursday is a travel day for the Dodgers, headed to Philadelphia for a three-game series against the Phillies. Yoshinobu Yamamoto makes his third start of the season on Friday night (3:45 p.m. PT, Apple TV+). The Phillies haven’t yet announced their starter, but left-hander Jesús Luzardo would be in line for the home team.