Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Alex Wood has been one of the most amazing stories in in baseball this year. After he wasn’t even viewed as one of the Dodgers’ five best starters out of Spring Training, Wood has put together a sensational season that included a ridiculous 1.56 ERA entering Friday’s game. If Wood had enough innings to qualify, that ERA would’ve been 51 points better than the next-best ERA, held by his teammate Clayton Kershaw.
But, things didn’t go so well for the 26-year-old on Friday night against the Braves, and he saw his ERA go up 61 points to 2.17 (still ridiculous). Wood gave up nine runs (seven earned) in 4 2/3 innings to the Atlanta Braves, and the way those runs were allowed was particularly embarrassing.
Wood allowed two runs to score in the top of the fourth when he dropped a pop-up:
Alex Wood drops a popup, two runs score pic.twitter.com/YwH3dlTpOy
— bird hating account (@atf13atf) July 22, 2017
And that was followed by a Jaime Garcia grand slam on an 0-2 count in the fifth inning. Yes, Garcia is a pitcher (and one that it appeared may be traded over the last 24 hours):
Jaime García hits a grand slam off Alex Wood, because baseball pic.twitter.com/EHXRhLflSe
— bird hating account (@atf13atf) July 22, 2017
A night to forget for Wood, but he definitely gets a pass given the Cy Young-contending season he’s put together. He hadn’t even allowed over one run in any of his previous five starts.
Garcia gave up three runs — or, fewer than he drove in — over seven innings to lead the Braves to a 12-3 victory over the Dodgers.
