Braves' Teheran tries to tame streaking Dodgers

ATLANTA -- Before his start at Dodger Stadium on July 22, Julio Teheran had at least lived up to his billing as the Atlanta Braves' top starting pitcher in his road outings.

Teheran was 6-0 with a 2.53 ERA away from Atlanta before allowing three homers in that defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He followed that up by yielding three more homers in a seven-run fifth inning at Philadelphia on Friday to fall to 7-9 with a 5.09 ERA overall.

Now Teheran has to pitch Wednesday night against the Dodgers -- the team with the best record in the majors -- at SunTrust Park, where he is 1-7 with a 7.05 ERA.

To make things even worse, the two-time National League All-Star has never beaten the Dodgers, going 0-6 with a 5.32 ERA in seven starts.

At least the Braves won't be facing the Dodgers' newly acquired Yu Darvish. The four-time American League All-Star with the Texas Rangers will join Los Angeles on Wednesday, but he won't make his Dodgers debut until Friday against the Mets in New York.

"He's an elite player," Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said of Darvish. "You add him to the pitching staff we already have, obviously it makes us considerably better."

The Dodgers also added left-hander relievers Tony Watson and Tony Cingrani in Monday trades just before the non-waiver deadline. Watson joined the team Tuesday, pitching a scoreless inning, and Cingrani will arrive on Thursday.

"It's infectious, the clubhouse environment," Watson said. "You can tell everyone is excited and expecting to win."

The Dodgers, on a nine-game winning streak and 75-31 after beating the Braves 3-2 on Tuesday, got the trade news while flying from Los Angeles to Atlanta on Monday.

"I was in between naps," Roberts said.

Quickly he was wide awake.

"I was excited," the manager said. "You never know what's going to happen and how it all kind of came to fruition, but I and obviously all of the coaches and players were thrilled."

Rookie Brock Stewart, making his second major league start, will get the call for the Dodgers in the middle game of three with the Braves.

The right-hander came out of the bullpen for a home start last week against Minnesota. He allowed five hits and five runs over 3 1/3 innings in the no-decision, but none of the runs were earned.

Stewart (0-0, 0.00 ERA) has also made six relief appearances covering 13 innings without being charged with a run, and he has 12 strikeouts to four walks overall. He worked two scoreless innings against the Braves in Los Angeles on July 20.

The Braves won that game to snap a Dodgers' 11-game winning streak and won again the next night. They were 1-6 the rest of the road trip, though.

Teheran must do a better job keeping the ball in the ballpark if he is going to get back on track. He has already allowed 26 homers, just one off his career high.

"I fell behind a couple times and didn't make my pitches," Teheran said of his debacle in Philadelphia.

The Braves are 3-12 since getting to 45-45, and any thought of trying to make a wild-card run are now long gone. Freddie Freeman has moved back to first base, Matt Adams is getting a chance in left field with Matt Kemp on the disabled list, and 20-year-old prospect Ozzie Albies will get a long look at second base.

Albies went 0-for-2 with a walk in his major league debut Tuesday.

"We're a different team than we were a couple of weeks ago," Braves manager Brian Snitker said. "The good thing is we have players in the organization again, which is exciting. We'll piece it together and try to win as many games as we can."