Or is it too soon for anything definitive to come out of a series between the two NL powers?
The two best teams in the National League this season were in The Ravine this weekend. (And don’t @ me, Phillies or Brewers or Cubs fans, because you should all have a pretty good idea who’s who by the time September arrives.)
And yes, the Dodgers and Braves eyed each other warily this weekend during a series that had, if not postseason implications, at least a postseason atmosphere unusual for the first weekend of May.
So, at the end of a Dodger sweep that concluded with a 5-1 victory Sunday featuring another Shohei Ohtani power exhibition, two questions: Does this send a message going forward? And, Dodger fans, don’t you feel silly for having overreacted to that 5-9 stretch in mid-April?
Since a 6-4 loss at home to the Mets April 20, which assured L.A. of its third straight series loss, the Dodgers are 11-2. They ripped through Washington, Toronto and Arizona on a 7-2 road trip, and won in all kinds of ways this weekend against an Atlanta team that had the league’s best record (20-9) coming in.
The Dodgers won in 11 innings Friday night on rookie Andy Pages’ walkoff single, capping the first four-hit game – but in all likelihood not the last – of his young, promising career. They bludgeoned the Braves 11-2 Saturday night while Tyler Glasnow pitched another gem; and they were coldly efficient Sunday. Shohei Ohtani hit his ninth and 10th homers, including a 464-foot, 110.6 mph blast into the wind that landed above the tarp at the center field edge of the left field pavilion in the eighth inning. Teoscar Hernandez added a two-run shot and a great throw from right field to throw out Matt Olson at second base to begin the seventh, and James Paxton had his most solid outing as a Dodger to date.
All of which gave the home team … well, bragging rights for now. It is, remember, a long season.
Still, roughing up Atlanta ace (and Harvard-Westlake alum) Max Fried, who carried a 15-inning scoreless streak into the game and pitched six no-hit innings in his last start at Seattle, matters.
