Timing and location have closely correlated with Braves starter Julio Teheran’s fortunes this season.
He’s usually been very good at home and not very good on the road. Teheran’s outings often are shaky in the first inning, but he tends to recover.
Against the Dodgers on Wednesday at Turner Field, Teheran was excellent early and effective through seven innings. The bats didn’t back him up, though, and the Braves lost 3-1.
Teheran tied his career-high with 11 strikeouts. He was perfect in three of his first four innings while facing one more than the minimum of 12 batters. The Dodgers were late to swing at his fastballs and lunging at his breaking pitches.
It turned out all the Dodgers (54-42) needed was a three-run fifth inning to sink Teheran (6-5). The Braves (45-50) failed to sweep three games against the National League West leaders.
“It might have been his best outing he had all year, and he got an ‘L’ for it,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “But that’s baseball. It’s a real cruel game that we play. But I was real pleased, real happy with the performance.”
Entering Wednesday, Teheran’s results had been good at home (5-0, 2.18 ERA) and bad on the road (1-4, 6.95). His 6.16 ERA in the first inning of his 19 previous starts was among the worst by NL starting pitchers; his 3.61 ERA in innings two through seven was evidence of the way he can recover.
Teheran was sharp from the beginning against the Dodgers, who couldn’t do anything against him until the fifth inning.
“The whole game I feel really good,” Teheran said. “You can see the number of strikeouts that I did today. Everything was working today. In the fifth inning, a couple times (I fell) behind, and you know how their hitters are. You can fall behind, and they make you pay for it.”
Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal led off the fifth with a double. Right fielder Nick Markakis was late to turn and run as the ball sailed over his head to the wall.
“I think that ball was over his head as soon as it came off the bat,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t think he misread anything.”
The next batter, Carl Crawford, grounded out to move Grandal to third base. Alberto Callaspo singled to score Grandal, Jimmy Rollins doubled to score Callaspo and Pederson hit a two-out RBI single for a 3-1 Dodgers lead.
Just like that, Teheran’s dominance had faded and the Braves were in a hole. They couldn’t get out of it against Dodgers starter Mike Bolsinger, who allowed just one base runner from the fourth through seventh innings.
Bolsinger (5-3) limited the Braves to three hits through seven innings while walking one batter and striking out four.
“He was tough,” Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “Give the guy credit. He changes speeds and makes it tough on a hitter. Changed his motion, changed his tempo. He paused; he wouldn’t pause. He just tried to mess up your timing. That’s what he does and he was good today.”
The Braves had a chance to rally when Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen walked Cameron Maybin to lead off the ninth inning. But Jansen retired Markakis, Kelly Johnson and pinch hitter Juan Uribe to secure the victory.
Teheran had matched Bolsinger until the fifth inning.
He started the game by striking out Joc Pederson, Howie Kendrick and Adrian Gonzalez in order. Teheran recorded two of his three outs in the second inning by strikeout and was perfect in the third and fourth.
Teheran also helped stake himself to a 1-0 lead with some nifty bat work in the third inning. He squared to bunt with two strikes before hitting a sharp line drive that shortstop Jimmy Rollins couldn’t handle.
After that error, Jace Peterson moved both runners with a sacrifice bunt and Maybin scored Simmons with a ground out to Rollins. That was all the offense the Braves could muster.
