The Los Angeles Dodgers can close out the NLDS tonight at Truist Park. They lead the Atlanta Braves 2-1 after a 3-1 win in Game 3. Game 4 starts at 6:00 PM ET. Tyler Glasnow takes the ball for Los Angeles, and Tyler Mahle starts for Atlanta with the Braves’ season on the line.
How the series got here
Los Angeles took Game 1 5-3 behind homers from Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker. Atlanta answered in Game 2. Blake Snell was chased early, and the Braves rode six relievers to a 3-2 win. Carlos Fuentes covered three perfect innings in the middle of it.
Game 3 belonged to Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He went seven innings and allowed one run with 10 strikeouts. Atlanta’s only run came on a Drake Baldwin groundout with the bases loaded in the fifth, and that was the Braves’ best chance of the night. Freddie Freeman and Hernández both homered off Chris Sale. Freeman has now gone deep in back-to-back games against his old team.
Glasnow brings the swing-and-miss
Glasnow went 5-2 with a 3.53 ERA and 98 strikeouts in a season interrupted by injury. Since returning in August, he has struck out at least seven batters in all but one of his six starts. His last two outings produced 10 strikeouts and then 11 in 6.1 innings against San Diego. Atlanta’s lineup is the wrong group to face that kind of stuff right now.
Atlanta’s bats have gone quiet
The Braves are 4-6 over their last 10 games and have hit .201 in that stretch. Michael Harris II (26 home runs, .294) has been their most dangerous bat this year, but the lineup has scored four runs over the last two games combined. Over the same 10-game span, the Dodgers are 7-3 with a 1.88 team ERA. Pitching has been the story of this series, and Los Angeles has more of it.
The case for Atlanta
Mahle has been a steady arm all season. He finished 7-10 with a 3.99 ERA and 137 strikeouts, and he has the stuff to keep a Dodgers lineup with Shohei Ohtani (30 home runs) in the park for five or six innings. Atlanta’s bullpen also showed in Game 2 that it can carry a game. If Mahle gets through the order twice cleanly, the Braves have a real path to a Game 5.
Dodgers vs. Braves Game 4 prediction
The Dodgers are around -140 to -144 with the Braves near +119. Los Angeles has the hotter starter, the better recent pitching and the lineup that has done the damage in this series. All three Dodgers wins have come from timely power, and Freeman is locked in. Atlanta needs its offense to wake up against a pitcher who has been missing bats at an elite rate since August. Back the Dodgers to finish it tonight.
The Pick: Los Angeles Dodgers ML -140
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