Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers won the first game of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves with a 5-3 victory that felt relatively safe until Atlanta managed to bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth against Evan Phillips. Tanner Scott allowed a two-run homer to Ozzie Albies after a Ronald Acuna Jr. single, and Phillips walked the dangerous Mauricio Dubón simply for the love of the game. Austin Riley grounded out to end the threat, as Phillips earned his first postseason save and Tarik Skubal secured his first postseason win with the Dodgers.
Myself and plenty of others believed it would have to be Chris Sale starting in Game 2 for the Braves, especially as they dropped the first game and face a daunting task against Blake Snell today, but things won’t play out like that for Atlanta. Sale has been pitching on five-days rest for the entirety of the season and his last start came on Tuesday, which would mean Game 2 would be on short rest for him based on how he’s been utilized in his age-37 season. That’s before factoring in the puzzling decision by Walt Weiss to bring Sale into a four-run game Thursday night against a lifeless Phillies’ offense. Even if that were a planned bullpen or side-session day for Sale, neither would match the intensity of playoff baseball in an elimination game. Based on how this series plays out, that could be borderline managerial malpractice that plagues many a manager early in their career.
So instead, the left-handed Ray Kerr will start for the Braves, and he most recently threw 3.1 innings on 47 pitches in Game 3 of the NL Wild Card series. His previous career high in pitches this season was 35, and this previous outing came Thursday night, putting Kerr on two days rest for this outing. The Braves would be ecstatic to get three innings from him today, and will push all their guys due to their pitching situation, but it’s a lot to ask of Kerr. The Dodgers meanwhile had an easy decision to make, starting their next elite left-handed starter in Snell. He’ll take the ball as the Dodgers look to take a 2-0 series lead before heading to Atlanta behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto, presumably against Sale.
 |  | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 5:00 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| C | Baldwin (L) | SS | Betts |
| RF | Acuña Jr. | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| 1B | Olson (L) | C | Smith |
| 2B | Albies (S) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| CF | Harris II (L) | LF | T. Hernández |
| SS | Dubón | RF | Tucker (L) |
| DH | Murphy | CF | Pages |
| 3B | Riley | 3B | Rojas |
| LF | Thomas | 2B | Edman (S) |
| P | Kerr (L) | P | Snell (L) |
The Dodgers run out nearly the exact same lineup with one move that is a bit of a head scratcher for me personally. There’s surely a ton of data and analysis that goes into matchups, lineup construction, and decision making, but sitting Muncy against the Braves bullpen is a bit puzzling. Muncy obviously hit an important homer last night, has been a proven postseason performer, and doesn’t have any overly concerning matchups to shy away from early in the game. Going back to something Alex mentioned in his NLDS Preview, the Braves pen doesn’t possess many weapons against lefties aside from Dylan Lee and Robert Suarez, to an extent. It’s not that Rojas over Muncy doesn’t make sense at times, like if Sale were starting obviously, so there must be something else the Dodgers see and are factoring in.
Last night, Mookie Betts reached twice in the leadoff spot, Shohei Ohtani looked better despite still struggling with his timing, and the two outfielders that felt like dead weight most of the season in Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker both added two hits, including two-run homers from each. Will Smith, Andy Pages, and Tommy Edman were all hitless, and the offense still put up five runs with relative ease. That’s probably the magic number for them, as they won the World Series averaging 4.24 runs per game last season, but needed a lot to go right along the way.
On the other side, the Braves make a somewhat surprising amount of moves considering they’re facing a lefty starter for the second day in a row. Drake Baldwin and Sean Murphy swap positions, with Baldwin behind the plate today and Murphy the designated hitter. Murphy also moves up in the order over Riley, and Lane Thomas starts in left field over Dubón, who slides over to shortstop in place of Ha-Seong Kim. Olson moves up in the order one spot, with Albies in the cleanup spot tonight. Returning to what Alex mentioned in his NLDS preview once again:
The lineup was anchored by most of the usual suspects. Matt Olson led the team with an .823 OPS and Michael Harris II (.812) and Drake Baldwin (.817) also finished above .800. Ronald Acuña Jr. just missed with a .796 OPS and dealt with a couple minor injuries this season, playing in only 107 games. Ozzie Albies was an All-Star and had a .758 OPS in the first half, but had a .575 second-half OPS and a .451 OPS in September to finish with a .685. The big offensive issue was Austin Riley, who continued his downswing with the worst season of his career. Riley was one of the most feared third base bats for a few season, posting a .878 OPS and winning two Silver Slugger awards over three seasons from 2021-2023. His OPS has been in a freefall since then and fell to a career-low .654, his first season under .700.
The Braves posted a very mediocre 89 wRC+ and a .689 OPS against left-handed pitching in the second half of the season, both marks ranking in the bottom half of the league respectively. It’s a smaller sample size when you look at just September, but you could argue that recent form is the only sample that really matters in October. In September, the wRC+ dropped to 61, with the OPS slipping to .585, both the lowest marks in the league. They struck out too much, didn’t walk frequently enough, and hardly slugged at all. Matt Olson, Acuna, and Michael Harris II were all still above-average against lefties in September, but they hardly got anything from anyone else. There is still danger in this lineup, and they have the power to get back into games in a hurry as we saw in the ninth inning last night, but this is again a much more favorable matchup for the Dodgers.
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For the pitchers, Kerr is sinker-heavy against left-handed batters, going to it over half the time against same-handed batters, and swaps that usage for a four-seamer against right-handed batters. Both pitches sit in the mid-90s, and he mixes in a low-80s curve that he throws against both left and right-handed hitters, as his only breaking ball. The Dodgers had the third lowest whiff-rate against sinkers from left-handed pitchers at just 10.5%, trailing just the Tigers (9.5%) and the contact heavy approach of the Tampa Bay Rays (9.4%). They also had the third highest xwOBA against sinkers from lefties at .383, also the third highest mark in baseball. He’ll go as long as he can, but the Braves would probably accept one inning and through the top of the order once, with anything extra just a bonus.
Former Dodgers’ prospect Grant Holmes is likely to factor into this game in some capacity, as he started 29 games for Atlanta this season, posting a 3.44 ERA across 151.2 innings pitched. The underlying metrics don’t love him, as he posted a 3.22 ERA in the second half, compared to a 4.38 FIP and a 5.77 expected ERA. That comes down to just 39 strikeouts to 23 walks in his 64.1 innings in the second half. The other issue is that he threw two innings in Game 3 of the NLWC series Thursday night, and while he’ll be prepared to log innings, a perfect world for the Braves is probably just four innings. Rookie JR Ritchie is also built up for significant innings, but struggled to a 4.91 ERA and a 5.56 FIP this year. Their breakout rookie relief arm in Didier Fuentes (2.45 ERA in 73.1 IP) was a starter in the minors prior to his promotion this season, but he did pitch in all three Wild Card games. The high-leverage relief arms are all available and should be expected for the late innings tonight, unless the game is out of hand.
Snell meanwhile, was tremendous this year once he returned from elbow surgery in May to remove loose bodies and bone spurs. He logged 39.2 innings since returning in August, and posted a 1.13 ERA, 1.71 FIP, and a 0.98 WHIP, with 50 strikeouts to just 14 walks. It’s valid to be bothered by Snell’s availability or lack thereof, having thrown just 104 regular season innings in his two seasons with LA, but he’s posted a 2.16 ERA and a 2.29 FIP while on the field, with a 3.18 ERA in the postseason last year.
Only 42.2 innings on the year, but ace performance every time he took the mound. There was a moment of brief concern with Snell leaving the game for precautionary purposes with groin tightness September 16 against the Reds, but he had a sharp outing against the Giants to close the year, looking healthy and ready for his Game 2 start.
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Probably not great that Pages can’t figure out when to use challenges properly to the point that his challenge privileges had to be revoked. I’m sure it’s within reason and not a hard no regardless of situation, but still.
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First pitch is at 5:00 PT on FS1.
