Dodgers beat Braves 3-1 to take 2-1 NLDS lead as Yamamoto strikes out 10

Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 10 batters over seven innings and Freddie Freeman and Enrique Hernández each homered in a decisive fourth inning as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 3-1 on Tuesday night, taking a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five National League Division Series. The win, in front of 42,420 fans at Truist Park, pushed Atlanta to the brink of elimination with Game 4 set for Wednesday night in the same ballpark.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, who finished the regular season with 100 wins, have not trailed in the series since the middle innings of Game 2. The Atlanta Braves must now win three straight games, starting Wednesday, to avoid an early playoff exit.

A three-run fourth undoes Sale

The game's outcome turned on a single frame. With one out in the top of the fourth and the score still 0-0, Andy Pages singled to left off Atlanta starter Chris Sale. Two batters later, Hernández drove a pitch 406 feet over the left-field wall for a two-run homer, and on the very next at-bat, Freeman followed with a solo shot to right-center that traveled 399 feet. The back-to-back homers accounted for all three Los Angeles runs; the Dodgers did not score again.

Sale, the Braves' left-hander, finished with a line of five innings, seven hits, three runs and seven strikeouts without issuing a walk, according to the box score from the game. He was charged with the loss. Yamamoto, by contrast, needed just 98 pitches to get through seven innings, allowing four hits, one run and one walk. His lone blemish came in the bottom of the fifth, when Atlanta loaded the bases on a single by Mauricio Dubón, a single by Lane Thomas and a walk to pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez. Drake Baldwin's groundout to first scored Dubón for the Braves' only run, but Yamamoto induced a groundout from Ronald Acuña Jr. to escape with two runners still stranded. Left-hander Tanner Scott worked a scoreless eighth, and closer Edwin Díaz worked around a leadoff single to close out the ninth for the save.

Tuesday's result followed a split in the first two games at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles won the opener 5-3 on Saturday, and Atlanta answered with a 3-2 win Sunday to even the series before it shifted to Georgia. Sale, who won the National League Cy Young Award in 2024, took the Game 3 loss, and it leaves Atlanta's rotation needing a response in Game 4 to keep the season alive.

A series result running opposite the regular season

The outcome so far has inverted the pattern of the two clubs' head-to-head play this year. Atlanta took five of the six regular-season meetings between the teams this year, including a three-game sweep at Truist Park in August, according to a series announcement from Major League Baseball, even though Los Angeles finished with a 100-62 record to Atlanta's 94-68. The Braves reached the division series by winning a decisive Game 3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card round, while the Dodgers advanced after a first-round bye as division champions.

The same league announcement noted that this is the fourth time the Dodgers and Braves have met in the Division Series, with Los Angeles winning the last one in 2018, three games to one. It is also the clubs' first postseason meeting since the 2021 National League Championship Series, when Atlanta won four of six games and went on to win the World Series that year.

Elimination pressure shifts to Atlanta

For the Braves, Wednesday's Game 4 is now a must-win. A loss would end their season rather than send the series back to Los Angeles for a fifth game. Manager Brian Snitker's pitching staff, which used four relievers behind Sale on Tuesday alone, will need a strong outing from its Game 4 starter to extend the series to a decisive fifth game, scheduled for Friday in Los Angeles if necessary.

For the Dodgers, the night's one offensive complication involved Shohei Ohtani, who went hitless in two at-bats with a walk, leaving him at a .200 batting average for the postseason. Manager Dave Roberts has not altered the construction of a lineup that still produced three runs on a single swing-heavy inning, with Mookie Betts, Freeman, Teoscar Hernández and Will Smith surrounding Ohtani in the order.

Yamamoto's outing lowered his earned-run average this postseason to 1.29. Should the series reach a fourth or fifth game, his next potential start would come on regular rest, a scheduling consideration the Dodgers will weigh against the option of using him sooner if the Braves extend the series.

What happens next

Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday night at Truist Park, with Atlanta needing a win to force a decisive Game 5 back at Dodger Stadium on Friday. A Dodgers win in Game 4 would send Los Angeles to the National League Championship Series, while a Braves win would set up a win-or-go-home finale in Los Angeles to close out the series.

The winner will meet the survivor of the other NLDS matchup, between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres, who were playing Game 3 of their own series Tuesday night with Milwaukee ahead two games to none. Both American League Division Series were also still in progress, with the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays each holding 2-0 leads of their own entering Wednesday's games.