Dodgers ride three home runs and six sharp innings from Tarik Skubal past Braves 5-3

Two swings built the cushion

For much of the afternoon, this game was defined by how cleanly Los Angeles turned a limited number of openings into runs. The Dodgers finished with eight hits and three walks, but the real separator was the middle of the order’s power. Teoscar Hernández opened the scoring in the fourth inning with a two-run drive to left-centre, a 431-foot shot that also brought home Freddie Freeman for a 2-0 lead.

Atlanta had kept the Dodgers quiet through the first three innings. Dylan Dodd worked three scoreless frames for the Braves, allowing only two hits and striking out four. That gave Atlanta a chance to settle into a low-scoring game, but the first relief change shifted the night. Victor Mederos recorded only one out in the fourth and was charged with both runs on Hernández’s homer.

The Braves briefly cut the deficit in half when Sean Murphy led off the sixth with a 421-foot homer to centre. It was one of only four Atlanta hits all day, and at 2-1 it brought some pressure back onto Los Angeles. The response from the Dodgers was immediate and emphatic.

Hernández started the bottom half with his second hit of the game, and Kyle Tucker followed by driving a 408-foot homer to right. Two batters later, Max Muncy added another solo shot to right, stretching the margin to 5-1. That sixth inning changed the shape of the result: Atlanta had found a way back into the game for a moment, and Los Angeles answered with back-to-back scoring swings that restored control.

Skubal and the bridge to the ninth

The Dodgers also got the kind of start that makes a three-homer game hold up. Skubal worked six innings, allowed only two hits and one run, walked two and struck out seven on 94 pitches. Atlanta’s offence never put together much sustained traffic against him. Murphy’s solo homer was the only damage, and the Braves went 31 at-bats deep while managing just four hits overall.

That line matters because Atlanta still made Dodgers pitchers work. The Braves saw 146 pitches, drew three walks and left eight runners on base, so this was not a nine-inning cruise. Still, with only four hits and nine strikeouts, their offence leaned almost entirely on isolated power. Ozzie Albies and Murphy supplied the home runs, but the Braves did not find the extra contact needed to build a larger inning.

After Skubal exited, Brock Stewart and Alex Vesia each delivered a scoreless inning with one strikeout apiece. That pair preserved the four-run advantage entering the ninth and gave Los Angeles a straightforward path to the finish. Instead, the game tightened one last time.

Tanner Scott recorded two outs in the ninth but gave up a two-run homer to Albies after Ronald Acuña Jr. had reached with a single. That cut the Dodgers’ lead to 5-3 and put the tying run closer than Los Angeles would have preferred. Evan Phillips then entered, issued a walk to Ha-Seong Kim, and got the final out for the save. The Dodgers secured the result, but not before Atlanta reminded them how quickly a quiet offensive day can still produce a tense ending when the ball leaves the yard.

Our take: enough thunder, but not a spotless finish

The Dodgers won this game in a way good lineups often do: they did not need a barrage of base hits when the damaging contact came with runners aboard. Hernández’s two-run homer broke open a scoreless game, Tucker’s two-run shot answered Atlanta’s lone push against Skubal, and Muncy’s solo blast supplied useful insurance. Los Angeles stranded nine runners, so this was hardly a perfect day with traffic on the bases, but the club was decisive in the moments that mattered most.

There is also a quieter strength in the pitching line. Skubal’s six innings gave the Dodgers a firm platform, and the first two relievers kept the game from drifting back toward even. When a team limits an opponent to four hits and still has to sweat the ninth, that usually says more about late leverage than about the full body of work. The larger performance on the mound was still strong.

For Atlanta, the frustration is easy to identify without overcomplicating it. Two home runs produced all three runs, yet the Braves received only two other hits across the rest of the lineup. Ronald Acuña Jr. scored once and Albies drove in two, but Atlanta got nothing from Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, Austin Riley or Lane Thomas in the hit column. Against a starter as sharp as Skubal, that left too little margin for error.

If there was a lesson in the closing innings, it applied mostly to the Dodgers. A 5-1 lead entering the ninth should feel stable, and this one nearly stopped being that. Los Angeles still earned a solid win because its best hitters supplied the loudest swings and its starter controlled the first six innings. Even so, the final frame kept this from becoming a tidy statement. It finished instead as a deserved victory with just enough late discomfort to keep it honest.

Scoring moments

1. 4th Inning

   T. Hernández homered to left center (431 feet), Freeman scored.

2. 6th Inning

   Murphy homered to center (421 feet).

3. 6th Inning

   Tucker homered to right (408 feet), T. Hernández scored.

4. 6th Inning

   Muncy homered to right (354 feet).

5. 9th Inning

   Albies homered to center (432 feet), Acuña Jr. scored.