Kim walks it off: Braves steal the Dodgers 6-5 and clinch the season series

Ha-Seong Kim had three at-bats in twenty games since he came off the rehab assignment. Wednesday night Walt Weiss handed him the fourth of the month, two outs in the ninth, Lane Thomas on second, Tanner Scott on the mound.

Kim went 3-0, took a strike, fouled off three, and ripped a 97.2 mph four-seamer to left. First hit since June 3. The 0-for-27 is dead. Braves 6, Dodgers 5. The season series is Atlanta’s.

The at-bat nobody had circled

Kim signed for one year and $20 million, then tore a ligament in his right middle finger slipping on ice in South Korea. He missed the first six weeks, hit .068 (5-for-73) through 27 games, spent July at Triple-A, and has been a sunk-cost argument on talk radio ever since.

Weiss did not send Dominic Smith, who has been the better pinch-hitter, because Scott is vicious on lefties. Kim has always hit lefties. “He’s been taking a million swings every day trying to get through this,” Weiss said.

Dave Roberts had the easy half of the chess: Thomas doubled with two outs, then an intentional walk to Austin Riley (.185 with two outs and runners in scoring position, 41.5 percent strikeouts in that split). Brewer Hicklen was already burned as a pinch-runner for Sean Murphy in the eighth. The ninth-spot DH was gone because Baldwin had to catch after Murphy came out. That left Smith or Kim. Weiss picked the right-handed one.

Kim, through interpreter David Lee: rough year personally, team is doing great, he was just trying to help. Drake Baldwin called the at-bat against a closer who has had a really successful year “pretty special after that in the clubhouse.”

Victor Mederos (3-1) threw a clean ninth and got the win. Scott fell to 1-5. That is two losses in two nights at Truist.

How it got to 5-5 first

Matt Olson’s 37th homer off Roki Sasaki made it 1-0. Tommy Edman’s two-run shot in the third made it 3-1 Dodgers. Riley’s sacrifice fly and Baldwin’s two-run double — Baldwin finished with three hits — flipped it 4-3 in the fourth. Sasaki was gone with a blister, one out in the fourth, four runs on six hits.

Murphy’s first home run of the season, off Eric Lauer in the sixth, made it 5-3. Then the seventh: Mookie Betts singled in Shohei Ohtani, Edman walked with the bases loaded against Didier Fuentes, and Fuentes escaped anyway — Kyle Tucker lined out, Alek Thomas bounced into a double play.

Eighth: Murphy’s third hit of the night, a roller that kissed the bag. Hicklen ran. Baldwin doubled. Nobody scored. Mauricio Dubón bounced into a double play against Brock Stewart. The game was still 5-5, which is how a guy hitting .068 gets to be the hero.

AJ Smith-Shawver: five innings, five hits, three runs. Third big-league start of the year, first against Los Angeles. Good enough.

What the standings did overnight

Atlanta 78-55. Los Angeles 80-53. Two games off the NL’s No. 2 seed — the bye that skips the Wild Card round. East lead still 4 1/2 on the Phillies. Because the Braves took the first two, they have clinched the season series, which means they would win a two-team tiebreaker with the Dodgers.

Thursday is not a rubber. It is Chris Sale (12-9, 2.20) against Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-7, 2.61), two of the ERA leaders, first time they have opposed each other. Sale has a 1.97 ERA over his last 20 starts. Yamamoto has not allowed a run in two career starts against Atlanta (10 innings). After this: Rockies, Giants, Nationals. Then it gets mean again.

Bird Gang bottom line

Weiss kept the $20 million bench bat when the internet wanted a faster glove. One nine-pitch at-bat against Scott does not make Kim a regular. It does make this club 2-0 in a series that was supposed to measure them, and it puts Sale on the mound Thursday with a sweep in reach. Win that one and the bye talk stops being a math problem.

Play Pick'em Baby