LOS ANGELES – Anibal Sanchez might’ve seemed an unlikely candidate to slow the Dodgers’ power-hitting binge and get the Braves a needed West Coast win, but the well-traveled veteran has gotten used to defying skeptics.
Sanchez worked 5 1/3 solid innings and Tyler Flowers drove in three runs with a pair of two-out hits in the Braves’ 5-3 win Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, where they knocked Alex Wood out of the game in the fifth inning before a spirited sellout crowd of 52,718.
Freddie Freeman added three hits for the Braves, who with a win in Sunday’s finale would clinch their first series at Dodger Stadium since April 2012. Before Saturday they dropped 13 of their past 16 games at the venerable ballpark in Chavez Ravine, beginning with losses in the last two games of a 2013 Division Series.
The Braves have won the past four games started by Sanchez, who gave up only one hit in the first four innings Saturday and left with a 4-2 lead in the sixth. He limited the surging Dodgers to three hits, two runs, two walks and five strikeouts.
Peter Moylan replaced him with a runner on base and struck out Matt Kemp for the second out in the sixth inning, and left-hander A.J. Minter came in after that and struck out Cody Bellinger to protect the lead.
The Braves didn’t sign Sanchez to a minor-league deal until March 16, one month into spring training, and he missed part of April and most of May with a strained hamstring. But since returning from the disabled list he’s come through when the Braves needed him after injuries to other pitchers.
He has a 2.37 ERA in six games this season including five starts, and Sanchez has allowed two or fewer runs in all but one game.
His past two starts were against the Nationals and a Dodgers team that had a majors-leading 22 homers and 62 runs in seven June games before Saturday. In those two games Sanchez allowed just five hits, four runs and three walks with 10 strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings.
Max Muncy’s one-out homer in the first inning was the only Dodgers hit until Yasiel Puig’s leadoff single in the fifth. In the interim, the Braves scored four unanswered runs to build a 4-1 lead.
Wood, a former Braves left-hander, was charged with nine hits, four runs (two earned runs) and no walks with six strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings. In his past three starts he’s allowed 20 hits, 15 runs (13 earned runs) and four walks in 12 innings with 15 strikeouts. That includes 14 hits allowed in 6 2/3 innings over his past two starts.
Wood has lasted fewer than five innings in three of four career starts against the Braves, allowing 32 hits and 20 runs (13 earned runs) in 19 1/3 innings for a 6.05 ERA and .364 batting average against his former team.
Nick Markakis doubled to start the second inning and scored on Charlie Culberson’s one-out single to tie the score. In the third inning the Braves got two runners on via an error and a Freeman single, and Flowers’ two-out double drove in both for a 3-1 lead.
The Braves added a run in the fifth on three singles against Wood, who was replaced after Flowers’ two-out single pushed the lead to 4-1. Culberson added another single in the inning to load the bases before Ender Inciarte grounded out to end the inning.
After Puig led off the Dodgers’ fifth with a single, one out and a hit later he scored on a ground-out to get the Dodgers within 4-2. The teams scored a run apiece in the seventh before Dan Winkler got arguably the two biggest outs of the game in the eighth, when the Dodgers had two on with one out and he coaxed a first-pitch fly-out from Kemp before striking out Bellinger.
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