The Dodgers did exactly what a 100-win defending champion is supposed to do in a Game 1 at home. They absorbed Atlanta’s best pitching, hit three home runs, and walked off with a 5-3 win to open the National League Division Series on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
Tarik Skubal was the difference. The two-time Cy Young winner the Dodgers pried out of Detroit at the trade deadline went six innings, allowed two hits and one run, struck out seven and walked two on 94 pitches in his first playoff start for Los Angeles. He retired 15 Braves in a row at one point.
Three Swings Decided It
The game was scoreless into the fourth, with Braves opener Dylan Dodd matching Skubal pitch for pitch. Then Teoscar Hernandez turned a 1-1 cutter into a two-run shot to left, and the night tilted for good.
Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy added solo homers in the sixth to make it 5-0. Muncy’s was the 17th postseason home run of his career, a Dodgers franchise record, which tells you how long this group has been doing damage in October.
Atlanta’s answers came late. Sean Murphy homered in the sixth and Ozzie Albies hit a two-run shot in the ninth, which made the final score look closer than the game ever felt.
Why This Series Is Already Over
Atlanta earned its way here. Walt Weiss took over for Brian Snitker, won the NL East for the seventh time in nine years, and beat the Phillies in the wild card round on home runs from Michael Harris II, Albies and Matt Olson. The Braves also went 5-1 against Los Angeles during the regular season. None of that is going to save them.
The problem is the pitching math. Game 2 is Blake Snell against Chris Sale, and Game 3 brings Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Atlanta’s rotation behind Sale is the precise weakness a best-of-five punishes, and the Braves spent Game 1 on a bullpen plan because they had nothing better available.
Los Angeles has the opposite situation: Skubal, Snell and Yamamoto in a short series, with a lineup deep enough that Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman rounding back into health counts as a bonus rather than a requirement. Three home runs off an opener is what that depth looks like in practice.
The Call
Dodgers in four. Snell smothers Atlanta in Game 2, Sale buys the Braves one night if he is sharp, and Yamamoto finishes it in Atlanta. Muncy said before the series that the regular season results “just doesn’t matter,” and Saturday was the first piece of evidence.
The one honest reason to doubt it is that Atlanta’s lineup woke up in the ninth, and Olson, Harris and Albies can carry a short series if they get hot together. But the Braves now have to win three of four against the deepest rotation in baseball while asking Sale to cover for everyone behind him. That is not happening. The defending champions are two wins from the NLCS, and they look like a team chasing a third straight title rather than clinging to one.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
