Make California Post a Preferred Source The Dodgers could blow this.
The Atlanta Braves walked into their National League Division Series with an enormous self-inflicted wound, and the Dodgers had them right where they wanted after claiming the opening game.
But as this series heads to Atlanta for Games 3 and 4, the Dodgers unexpectedly find themselves in trouble.
The Dodgers handed back whatever advantages they had in an unforgivable 3-2 defeat on Sunday that leveled the series at one game apiece.
If the Dodgers are to advance to the NL Championship Series, they will have to earn it.
The Braves’ starting pitcher for Game 3 on Tuesday: Chris Sale, the former Cy Young Award winner who pitched a complete shutout against them in August.
In Game 4, the Dodgers will face right-hander Tyler Mahle, a successful reclamation project who was 4-1 with a 1.99 earned-run average in nine starts after the Braves acquired him from the San Francisco Giants at the trade deadline.
If there is a Game 5, it will be played at Dodger Stadium, with Tarik Skubal scaling the mound for the Dodgers and the Braves resorting to their third bullpen game of the series. Skubal blanked the Braves over six innings in Game 1, but six Braves relievers combined to shut down the Dodgers in Game 2.
The Braves have found a realistic path to victory in a series in which they looked as if they had no chance just a day earlier.
The short answer is that Braves manager Walt Weiss gambled – and won.
Instead of starting Sale in Game 2, Weiss elected to push him back two days and have him pitch Game 3.
If Sale would have pitched on Sunday, he would have done so on four-days’ rest, which the 37-year-old hadn’t done since April. Sale was only three days removed from converting a four-out save against the Philadelphia Phillies in a Wild Card Series.
The downside for the Braves was considerable. Their two previous games were also bullpen games, and they were counting on a run-down group of relievers to take down Snell and stop the Dodgers from taking a two-games-to-none lead.
If their dreams of a three-peat evaporate over the next week, Game 2 will be the game on which they look back with regret.
The Braves didn’t win this game as much as the Dodgers lost it.
They had one of their aces on the mound in Blake Snell.
They had Shohei Ohtani in the batter’s box with two runners on base in the third inning.
They started the fifth inning with Mookie Betts drawing a walk and Ohtani advancing him to second base with a ground-ball single.
And Will Smith, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez failed to drive either of them in.
The Dodgers left seven men on base. They were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position. The only runs they scored were the result of a fourth-inning home run by Freeman and a solo shot from Max Muncy in the ninth.
The offense doesn’t look right, with Ohtani out of sync and the team not being able to score unless they knock the ball over the fence. Three homers were responsible for each of the five runs they scored in their Game 1 victory.
As was the case last year, the Dodgers will be counting on Yoshinobu Yamamoto to save their season.
When the Dodgers were behind the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series by a three-games-to-two deficit last year, it was Yamamoto who won Game 6.
When they ran out of pitchers a day later in Game 7, it was Yamamoto who pitched the final 2 ⅔ innings.
Tuesday night at Truist Field, Yamamoto will pitch opposite of Sale.
How Yamamoto performs could determine whether the Dodgers win the World Series – and how they are remembered.
