Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers took home field advantage back from Atlanta, taking the all-important Game 3 in a 3-1 win. Atlanta finally sent ace Chris Sale to the mound and the Dodgers had traffic early and often, finally breaking through in the fourth on a pair of homers by Enrique Hernandez and Freddie Freeman. The three-run fourth was enough for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who continued his postseason dominance with seven innings of one-run ball. Tanner Scott worked around a walk in the eighth and Dave Roberts went with an Edwin Diaz heat check that worked, as he pitched around a leadoff double for a scoreless ninth to put the Dodgers a win away from the NLCS. Today, the Dodgers look to finish off the series in four, which would allow them to not have to use Tarik Skubal in Game 5 and set him up for two starts in the NLCS as they’d wait for the winner of the Milwaukee/San Diego series (which could also be decided tonight).
 |  | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:00 P.M. | Atlanta | ||
| SS | Betts | CF | Harris II (L) |
| 1B | Freeman (L) | RF | Acuña Jr. |
| C | Smith | 1B | Olson (L) |
| DH | Ohtani (L) | 2B | Albies (S) |
| LF | T. Hernández | DH | Baldwin (L) |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | LF | Yastrzemski (L) |
| 2B | K. Hernández | SS | Dubón |
| RF | Tucker (L) | 3B | Riley |
| CF | Pages | C | Murphy |
| P | Glasnow (L) | P | Mahle (R) |
Tyler Glasnow makes his 2026 postseason debut after another injury-plagued season. Glasnow made it seven starts into the season before leaving a May start in Houston with a back issue that sidelined him for 3.5 months. He returned in late August and made six uneven starts, posting a 4.46 ERA in 34 1/3 innings but striking out 49 batters including finishing the season with back-to-back double digit strikeout games. His first start back from injury came in Atlanta and it got off to a rough start. Glasnow gave up four singles and a sac fly for a three-run first inning in that start, but settled in and only allowed two more baserunners and got through five innings. Glasnow took a bit of a swingman role last postseason, making three starts and three relief appearances overall. He allowed four earned runs in 21 1/3 innings with 25 strikeouts and 11 walks. The Dodgers won each of Glasnow’s three starts and he took down 16 1/3 innings with 21 strikeouts and nine walks issued. His first start came in the exact same situation as tonight’s game; a Game 4 with the Dodgers leading the series 2-1. He was stellar in that start against the Phillies, giving up two hits over six shutout innings with eight strikeouts and three walks allowed. He started NLCS Game 3 against Milwaukee and held the Brewers to a run and three hits over 5 2/3 innings. Glasnow also got the start in Game 3 of the World Series and gave up two earned runs in 4 2/3 innings, but also gave up two unearned after a Tommy Edman error at second. Glasnow also threw five innings in relief last postseason and gave up a run on five hits and two walks.
Tyler Mahle makes his second start of the postseason and only his second postseason appearance in his 10-year Major League career. Mahle had a really rough start to the season with a 5.13 ERA in 18 starts with the Giants, who signed Mahle to a 1-year, $10M contract in January. He was theoretically part of the Giants’ deadline firesale, but Atlanta was able to get him in a 1-1 deal for Anthony Molina, a former Rule 5 guy that Atlanta ended up getting off the Rockies’ waivers. Mahle joined Atlanta and started dominating, with a 1.99 ERA in nine starts with five of the 12 runs he gave up as a Brave coming in his final start. Mahle did get his first win of the season this year against the Dodgers in an excellent start back in April, giving up three hits over seven shutout innings.
Mahle made his postseason debut in Game 2 of the Wild Card series against Philly and similarly dominated. He gave up a run on six hits in seven innings in a game Atlanta ended up losing. Most of the damage came early on, as Trea Turner led off with a double, moved to third on a groundout and scored on a Bryce Harper single. He gave up another single before getting out of the first, but only gave up three more hits and a walk on his way to finishing off seven innings.
Mahle was essentially a three-pitch pitcher this season, leading with a four seamer (48.3 percent usage) and mixing in a splitter (29.7 percent) and cutter (14.9 percent). He also will throw a slider (6.4 percent) and threw some pitches that registered as sinkers early on, but hasn’t thrown one since mid-April. Mahle started using his splitter significantly more with Atlanta. He threw it 40 percent of the time in his very first start of the season, but used it closer to 20-25 percent of the time for the rest of his time with the Giants. After the deadline, Mahle threw the splitter between 37.4 percent and 40.8 percent in each of his nine Atlanta starts. He went crazy with it in his Wild Card start, throwing it 57.9 percent of the time with five of his six strikeouts coming off it.
Shohei Ohtani hits fourth today after hitting fifth last night. Kiké gets the start at second and hits seventh even with a righty on the mound, with Edman sitting amid an 0-for-6 start to the postseason.
——
Miguel Rojas is out for today, but no roster move.
——
First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 PM PT and will be on FS1.
