As much as it pained Kyle Snyder to see Tyler Glasnow traded from Tampa Bay to the Dodgers last December, the Rays pitching coach predicted the move would benefit the 6-foot-8 right-hander from Santa Clarita.
“I genuinely think his best days are in front of him,” Snyder said in February. “He’s healthy. The injury that surfaced in 2019 was ultimately taken care of [with Tommy John surgery] in 2021. I would expect him to have his best years in the near-term and be as good a starter as there is in the National League, for certain.”
Glasnow continues to prove his former coach right, the new Dodgers ace delivering his third straight dominant start — this one a seven-inning, two-run, five-hit, 10-strikeout, one-walk effort — to help lead the Dodgers to an 11-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves in front of 44,474 at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night.
Max Muncy provided most of the power in a 16-hit attack with his first career three-homer game — a two-run shot in the second inning and solo shots in the seventh and eighth innings — and the first by a Dodgers player since Trayce Thompson hit three homers against the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 1, 2023.
Glasnow’s third 10-whiff game in eight starts pushed the Dodgers toward their 10th win in 12 games, a stretch in which their starting pitchers have given up only 16 earned runs over 68 ⅔ innings for a 2.10 ERA.
Glasnow improved to 7-1 with a 2.70 ERA on the season and has given up only two earned runs and 14 hits in 21 innings, striking out 29 and walking four, in his last three starts — wins over the New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays and Braves.
He threw 61 of his 96 pitches for strikes and induced 11 swinging strikes and 12 called strikes.
Glasnow retired the first nine batters — three by strikeout — in the first three innings, dotting a knee-high, 98-mph fastball on the inside corner to whiff Travis d’Arnaud looking to end the second and dropping an 85-mph curve on the inside corner to whiff Jarred Kelenic looking to end the third.
Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow throws during the first inning Saturday.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
The Braves nicked Glasnow for a run in the fourth, but Glasnow struck out three of four batters in the fifth. He pitched around a Ronald Acuña Jr. leadoff double in the fifth, striking out No. 2 hitter Ozzie Albies with an 89-mph slider, Austin Riley with an 85-mph curve in the dirt and, after walking Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna with an 85-mph curve.
Glasnow gave up his second run in the seventh when d’Arnaud led off with a double, took third on a groundout and scored on Orlando Arcia’s groundout.
The Dodgers hit two other homers in the game — by Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages — and blew the game open during a four-run fourth inning in which they batted around.
Muncy followed Will Smith’s leadoff walk in the second with his sixth homer of the season, a two-run shot off Braves starter Bryce Elder that traveled 412 feet to center field for a 2-0 lead.
Ohtani led off the third with his eighth homer, a relatively modest — by his standards — 392-foot shot to right that pushed the lead to 3-0 and moved the slugger past manager Dave Roberts and into first place on the franchise leaderboard for homers by a Japanese-born player.
Roberts, a former Dodgers outfielder, hit seven homers for the club from 2002 to 2004.
The Braves cut the deficit to 3-1 in the top of the fourth when Acuña, doubled and scored on Riley’s RBI single to center.
Pages got that run back in the bottom of the fourth with a leadoff homer to left-center, giving the rookie outfielder four homers in 16 games since his mid-April promotion to the big leagues and extending his hitting streak to 10 games.
The Dodgers were just getting warmed up. James Outman walked, Gavin Lux grounded into a fielder’s choice, and Mookie Betts walked to put two on for Ohtani, who slapped an opposite-field RBI single to left for a 5-1 lead.
Atlanta manager Brian Snitker replaced Elder with left-hander Dylan Lee, who yielded RBI singles to Freddie Freeman and Smith that extended the Dodgers’ lead to 7-1.
Muncy sparked a three-run seventh with a 404-foot leadoff homer to right off left-hander Tyler Matzek, his seventh of the season, and he sent his eighth homer of the season 371 feet to left-center off right-hander Jackson Stephens in the eighth.
