Chris Sale didn’t just win a pitching duel against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He took over the night.
Atlanta beat the Dodgers 1-0 behind Sale’s complete-game shutout, the Braves’ first since Max Fried’s 5-0 win over the Marlins in April 2024. The only run came immediately, when Drake Baldwin jumped on Yamamoto’s first pitch to a Braves hitter - a hanging splitter - and sent a solo homer Chop House-ward. After that, nobody scored and nobody really threatened to.
Sale was the story from there. Against an offense that ranks first or second in pretty much everything, he carved through the Dodgers with the kind of command that makes him feel inevitable. He was on the edge of a Maddux for much of the night, and he did it with a steady mix of strikeouts, weak contact, and just enough defensive help to keep the zero intact.
He opened with a nine-pitch first inning, striking out one and getting two first-pitch groundouts before Mookie Betts reached on a soft single. In the second, Sale struck out two more and worked around an overcooked slider that clipped Alex Call on the toe.
The third was even sharper: three strikeouts in 12 pitches, with Shohei Ohtani sandwiched between two quick punchouts. Betts opened the fourth with a bloop double that nearly turned into trouble when he took too aggressive a turn around second, but Sale escaped with seven pitches, a strikeout, and a couple of routine flyouts handled by his defense.
The fifth was where Sale showed the full shape of his night against one of the game’s best. After two quick outs, Ben Rortvedt singled to left, bringing up Ohtani.
Sale got ahead with a get-me-over fastball, then missed twice on perfect fastballs on the outer edge that weren’t called strikes and weren’t challenged. He then induced a graze on a slider before overpowering Ohtani with a 100 mph pitch up around the chin.
He went right back to work in the sixth with another three-pitch strikeout and two more quick outs.
The seventh was his first inning without a strikeout, and it was also the only real scare. Miguel Rojas poked a one-out single, and with two outs Enrique Hernandez turned on a 96 mph fastball up in the zone and barreled it - the Dodgers’ only barrel of the game aside from Baldwin’s homer.
Michael Harris II tracked it down on the warning track to keep the shutout alive. Sale opened the eighth by striking out Rortvedt, watched Ohtani lift a weak fly ball, then dealt with another jam after an overcooked slider to Tommy Edman put the tying run aboard.
Betts followed with a hard chopper, but it became an easy infield out.
Sale finished the eighth at 97 pitches, and Walt Weiss stayed with him in the ninth. Freddie Freeman led off with a single through the infield, but Sale kept going.
Teoscar Hernandez followed with a weak fly ball to left. Then came the play that dragged the inning out: Miguel Rojas worked six pitches before sending a soft bouncer to third, where Austin Riley fired to second and Ozzie Albies’ throw was off line even though Matt Olson appeared to stay on the bag.
Laz Diaz ruled Olson had come off, and replay left the call standing. Sale waited through the long review, kept throwing to stay loose, and then finished the job himself.
He got Alex Call to foul off a pitch down the middle, then ended it with a weak swing on a pitch up and away.
Yamamoto was strong too, but the homer put him behind immediately and the Braves never truly built on it. Ha-Seong Kim picked up a second straight hit in the third and stole second, but Baldwin struck out and Albies popped up to strand him.
Albies added a two-out single in the sixth that went nowhere. Atlanta finally pushed Yamamoto out in the seventh after Harris beat out an infield single, stole second, and Lane Thomas walked.
The Dodgers brought in Jack Dreyer to face Mike Yastrzemski with the platoon edge, and Yastrzemski rolled into a soft liner back to the mound that became a double play. Yamamoto finished with an 8/1 K/BB ratio, and Edgardo Henriquez struck out the side in the eighth.
Still, this belonged to Sale. He posted an 11/0 K/BB line, though he did hit two batters.
His straight-up FIP and xFIP weren’t even among his top starts of the year, which says plenty about how often he’s stacked strikeouts and clean innings in shorter outings. But this one will stick because of the finish: a complete-game shutout against the Dodgers, on a night when Sale looked every bit like the ace Atlanta needed him to be.
The win moved the Braves five games ahead of the Phillies in the division and put them within one game of the Dodgers for the NL’s second-best record. It was Atlanta’s first sweep of the Dodgers since 2013. The Rockies are next, and after a night like this, the only question is whether the Braves can avoid a letdown.
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