Category: Sports News

LOS ANGELES — Turns out, Sunday was a bullpen game for both teams at Dodger Stadium, whether by design or not. But the Dodgers managed only two runs against six Braves pitchers in a slog of a game and a 3-2 loss to even the National League Division Series at one game apiece.

Blake Snell did not have it in his start, and in retrospect it was a minor miracle he left with only one run against his ledger. His first inning took 27 pitches with two singles, two walks, and a run, but he escaped with by striking out Sean Murphy.

After allowing two-out baserunners in the second and third innings with no damage, Snell regressed in the fourth with two more walks, giving him a season-high five walks on the evening. It’s the most walks by Snell in a start since August 24, 2024, when he walked six while with the San Francisco Giants.

But all that traffic meant 90 pitches for Snell to get just 11 outs, with nearly as many balls (43) as strikes (47).

Brock Stewart got the final out of the fourth inning to strand those two runners left by Snell. That started the bullpen game that the Dodgers very much were not expecting.

A rarity

Left-hander Kris Bubic, acquired at the trade deadline from the Kansas City Royals while on the 60-day injured list, is a starting pitcher and former All-Star who has pitched in relief through his rehab assignment and into the majors because that’s where the need arose in Los Angeles. It has mostly worked swimmingly, through six rehab outings in Triple-A and five games with the Dodgers down the stretch.

Bubic’s 12th appearance in the organization came to start the fifth inning, and he got the first two outs before Michael Harris II hit a ball into the left field corner that Teoscar Hernández played into a triple. That was the first extra-base hit Bubic allowed during those 12 games, with Harris his 43rd batter faced. Nobody had yet scored against Bubic either in 11 innings, until he uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Harris to scamper home with the go-ahead run.

Déjà vu

For the second straight game, the Dodgers failed to score against the first pitcher in a Braves bullpen game. After Dylan Dodd pitched three scoreless innings to open Game 1, fellow southpaw Ray Kerr got the first eight outs on Sunday and kept the Dodgers from scoring.

Miguel Rojas, who hit .293/.240/.469 with a 121 wRC+ against left-handers this season, got the start at third base and paid dividends in the form of a leadoff double off Kerr in the third inning. But that rally was neutered by Tommy Edman, a switch-hitter with a career 118 wRC+ against southpaws, attempted a bunt for some reason but instead popped out to Austin Riley at third base. Then Shohei Ohtani continued his expedition outside the strike zone before popping out weakly.

Kerr shook hands with Braves manager Walt Weiss after an impressive extended outing for the second time in four days, and former Dodgers first-round draft pick Grant Holmes needed only one pitch to induce a Will Smith ground out to strand the two runners left behind by Kerr.

Finding his swing?

Once again, the Dodgers scored against the first Braves reliever, and did so again via the long ball. Freddie Freeman took Holmes deep in the fourth to tie the game at 1-1, Freeman’s first home run since September 2, snapping a skid of 85 plate appearances without one. Before that, Freeman went 47 full games and 196 plate appearances without a homer. A good chunk of that time had Freeman plagued by a right knee injury, though Freeman over the final week of the season insisted the knee got healthy, but he had developed bad habits with his swing that he tried to correct over the five days off before the NLDS.

Through two games of the NLDS, Freeman has gotten three hits, and scored in each contest.

Rough first game back

Edgardo Henriquez was one of the Dodgers’ best relievers this season, but he spent the last two weeks of the regular season on the injured list with lower back discomfort. He entered the seventh inning on Sunday with the Dodgers trailing 2-1. The stuff looked good in Henriquez’s first game in three weeks, well into triple digits with his fastball, but lefties Matt Olson got and Harris tagged Henriquez for hits, with Harris delivering a two-out double to score Olson from first base, widening Atlanta’s advantage to 3-1.

Starring performance

The Dodgers had their chances on offense, putting eight runners on base in the first five innings. But only one of them scored, thanks to seven hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position. 21-year-old Braves right-hander Didier Fuentes simply fixed that glitch for Atlanta, and didn’t permit any Dodgers to reach base at all in his first three innings, and even pitched into the ninth, getting two more outs. Then he gave up a home run to Max Muncy, pulling the Dodgers within one and pulling Fuentes from the game, robbing the world of the second four-inning save of this postseason.

Fuentes threw 47 pitches to record his 11 outs and struck out three Dodgers, after a 31-percent strikeout rate to fuel his 2.45 ERA in 73 1/3 innings during the regular season.

Meanwhile, 15 Braves reached base on Sunday, including eight walks by Dodgers pitchers, just the eighth game in Dodgers postseason history with at least eight walks.

Last-ditch effort

Muncy’s home run brought in Raisel Iglesias, the Braves’ closer, and brought pinch-hitter Josue De Paula to the plate as the potential tying run. It was the first major league postseason at-bat for the 21-year-old De Paula, but he popped out in four territory to end the game with the Dodgers just short.

NLDS Game 2 particulars

Home run: Freddie Freeman (1), Max Muncy (2)

WP — Dylan Lee (2-0): 2/3 IP, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout

LP — Kris Bubic (0-1): 2/3 IP, 1 hit, 1 run, 1 walk

Sv — Raisel Iglesias (2): 1 up, 1 down

Up next

The Dodgers turn to Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 3 in Atlanta on Tuesday night (3:08 p.m. PT, FS1), while the Braves will have ace Chris Sale rested and ready to start after a pair of Atlanta bullpen games to open the series.

From the start, the Atlanta Braves knew that they would be going with a bullpen game in Game 2 of the National League Division Series.

The unexpected twist: The Dodgers essentially had to do the same thing, as well.

After a rather straightforward victory in the opening game of this best-of-five series, nothing went according to plan for the Dodgers on Sunday.

Blake Snell failed to complete four innings, grinding through poor command and long at-bats in a start that included only one run but also five walks. 

The relief corps was saddled with a heavy workload, turning another sweltering night at Chavez Ravine into a sweat-inducing battle of the bullpens.

And after the Dodgers gift-wrapped the Braves a run in the fifth inning, when Teoscar Hernández turned a fly ball down the line into a triple and Kris Bubic threw a run-scoring wild pitch, the two-time defending champions found themselves on the back foot for the first time this fall.

In a 3-2 loss, they wouldn’t recover.

Instead, a series the Dodgers seemed to have under control coming into Sunday has quickly been flipped on its head.

The Braves’ decision to save staff ace Chris Sale for Game 3 –– the highly-debated pre-game talking point –– now looks prescient. The Dodgers’ decision to start Snell in Game 2, and not Yoshinobu Yamamoto, might now be questionable.

And while the Braves had to burn through the heart of their bullpen, using six different arms to piece together 27 outs, so too did the Dodgers, who summoned six relievers of their own in a losing effort.

With Game 3 set for Tuesday night back in Atlanta, this 1-1 series suddenly appears to be up for grabs.

“We knew it was going to be a battle,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We knew those guys weren’t going to go down.”

Still, it’s hard not to feel like what really happened Sunday was the Dodgers letting a previously dazed Braves squad climb back off the mat.

“I felt really good where we were at,” Roberts added. “We just couldn’t execute as the game progressed.”

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Really, the Dodgers were behind from the start on Sunday, with Snell –– who had previously pitched just five innings since Sept. 11 because of a groin injury, yet got the nod for Game 2 to remain on his regular pitching schedule –– giving up a quick run in the first.

The Braves loaded the bases with one out, on a single from Ronald Acuña Jr. and two walks from Snell. Mauricio Dubón got a run home on an infield knock, sending a ground ball deep into the hole at shortstop that Mookie Betts fielded but made an errant throw to first on.

Snell ultimately limited the damage there, but required 27 pitches in doing so. By the time he was pulled with two outs in the fourth, that total had already ballooned to 90.

“He just was fighting himself with his delivery all game,” Roberts said of Snell, who was not in the Dodgers’ clubhouse postgame because of what the team said was a family matter. “It wasn’t the groin. He just wasn’t sharp tonight.”

The bigger problem was the Dodgers’ inability to get to the Braves’ bullpen, starting with left-handed opener Ray Kerr.

Showing no signs of fatigue just two days removed from a heroic 47-pitch outing in Game 3 of the wild-card series, Kerr gave Atlanta unexpected length.

The former minor-league journeyman worked all the way into the third without damage. He struck out four batters. He even got Shohei Ohtani out twice, including on a first-inning punchout with an inside fastball.

“I think with Shohei, if you look at the at-bats, there’s a lot of chase,” Roberts said of Ohtani, who has managed just two singles so far this series while continuing to play through right arm and left knee injuries.

“I haven’t heard anything other than he feels fine [physically]. So I don’t know if he’s trying to do too much because he doesn’t feel perfect. But this time of year, no one feels perfect. He’s doing the best he can.”

Trouble was brewing in Kerr’s final frame, after Miguel Rojas –– inserted into the starting lineup in place of Max Muncy to counteract the southpaw –– roped a full-count curveball down the line for a leadoff double.

But, in a maddening sequence of situational ineffectiveness, the Dodgers couldn’t take advantage.

Tommy Edman popped up on a bunt, as part of a second-straight hitless performance. Ohtani popped out on another chase, after missing a center-cut pitch earlier in the at-bat. Will Smith rolled over on a first-pitch slider, contributing to his team-worst 0-for-8 mark this weekend.

“We had opportunities,” Roberts said. “We just couldn’t get a hit when we needed to.”

It would become the theme of the night, with the Dodgers going 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position while stranding seven men on base.

So far this series, all seven of their runs have come via homers.

“Got to find a way to score some runs without hitting a home run,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “I think that’s our biggest thing right now.”

Freeman did hit a home run in the bottom of the fourth –– a positive sign after belting just one in his final 66 regular-season games while battling a right knee injury –– lifting a low slider from right-hander Grant Holmes over the wall in right to tie the score at 1-1.

But there would be another missed chance later in the inning, with high-leverage Atlanta left-hander Dylan Lee stranding a pair of runners, before the Dodgers fell right back behind in the fifth on the miscues from Hernández and Bubic.

Off the bat, Hernández appeared to have a bead on a slicing opposite-field, two-out line drive from Michael Harris II. But the ball kept drifting away from him, evading his outstretched glove before rattling around in the corner for a triple.

“I didn’t break in, but I broke to the side [instead of straight back]. And then when I realized, it was too late,” Hernández said. “I still thought I had a shot at it, but it just kept carrying.”

Three pitches later, Bubic airmailed a sweeper that catcher Will Smith couldn’t handle. The self-inflicted wound left the Dodgers trailing again, 2-1.

“I just lost it out of hand,” Bubic said. “It’s never an ideal situation, but especially with a runner on third there.”

From then on, the rest of the game was a frustrating grind, with the Dodgers facing one stout reliever after the next.

In the bottom of the fifth, hard-throwing right-hander Robert Suarez inherited a two-on, no-out jam but escaped unscathed, ending the inning on a 50/50 check swing call that went against Hernández.

After that, another rocket-armed righty, 21-year-old Didier Fuentes, went nine up, nine down over three scoreless innings –– all while the Braves extended their lead on a two-out RBI double Harris smacked against a dead-red cutter from Edgardo Henriquez in the seventh.

“Bullpen games are hard,” Freeman said. “You’re facing a different arm every single time you’re going up there. It’s different angles, different velocities, different things.”

The last arm the Dodgers faced wouldn’t come until two outs in the ninth, after the Braves sent Fuentes back to the mound for a fourth inning of work, watched him finally give up a home run to Muncy, then summoned veteran closer Raisel Iglesias for the final out.

That came way of pinch-hitting rookie phenom Josue De Paula, who popped up in foul ground right in front of the Dodgers’ dugout for the final out.

They trudged back to the clubhouse, while the Braves reveled in an unforeseen win.

“Getting the split in this place against these guys, yeah, it’s awesome,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “We’re in a good position. We’ve got Chris Sale lined up.”

Indeed, the Dodgers have now squandered their home-field advantage. They no longer hold a clear pitching edge, either.

Sale (who shut out the Dodgers in August) will face Yamamoto in an epic –– and pivotal –– Game 3 showdown. Tyler Mahle (who had a sub-2.00 ERA after a deadline trade to the Braves) and Tyler Glasnow are scheduled for Game 4.

“We all knew it was going to be a good series,” Freeman insisted.

It’s just that, it seemed like it would be a whole lot easier for the Dodgers given the state of play at the start of the day.

“We know what’s at stake on Tuesday,” Freeman said. “We need to get that win.”

Major League Baseball's further-expanded postseason probably means that no playoff records will be safe in the years to come, with more October games than ever before.

All 18 of Mickey Mantle's home runs came in the World Series as the Hall of Famer retired before the introduction of the League Championship Series in 1969. Previously, the top team in each league would go directly to the World Series at the end of the regular season.

These days with a 12-team postseason field, a team can play up to 22 games – compared to seven in Mantle's day – meaning plenty more opportunities to accumulate stats on baseball's biggest stage.

But Manny Ramirez, who last played in the postseason in 2009, still holds the record with 29 home runs in the postseason. Jose Altuve ranks second in history with 28 – including one in the AL wild card series – but the Houston Astros will have to get back to the postseason

Here's a look a the all-time leaders in career postseason home runs:

LOS ANGELES – Josue De Paula's plans for October originally included a trip back home and three weeks off to spend time with family before picking up his offseason training regimen. That was until he got a call from Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts a few days ago.

Instead, the 21-year-old rookie will spend the month on the Dodgers' postseason roster, waiting in the wings for when Roberts calls his number.

"I was shocked. I was happy," De Paula said. "There was a lot of emotions going on at the same time. A lot of thoughts going into it, like envisioning how this is going to be. I'm just going along for the ride and see how everything comes to me."

De Paula's role will be primarily as a lefty bat off the bench, and Roberts has mentioned there aren't many guys in his lineup that he'll pinch-hit for, so his opportunities will be limited as the Dodgers attempt to make history in their push for a third consecutive World Series championship.

It's not a position he's used to; De Paula admits he's only been a pinch hitter once or twice in his entire minor league career, the most recent of which was in 2024 with High-A Great Lakes. He pinch-hit once in his first big league series on the road in Cincinnati and recalls liking the adrenaline that came with it. To build on that, De Paula has been leaning on the vets in the clubhouse to try and keep everything as close to his normal routine as possible despite the unfamiliar role.

Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani has a bigger spotlight on him than just about anybody else in sports.

His wife, Mamiko Tanaka, prefers to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible.

This is why it’s always cool to see Mamiko out in public, particularly when she’s at Dodgers games.

She was one of many Dodgers WAGs who showed up for their team’s NLDS Game 2 showdown against the Braves.

All of these wives posed for a photo together pregame, which was posted on the @ladodgerwives Instagram account.

“Game 2, little less hot but we’re still [bringing] the heat ,” the post was captioned.

Mamiko Tanaka can be seen in the second row, on the far left. She’s wearing a black top in the photo.

Tanaka also appeared at NLDS Game 1 on Saturday. She was rocking a similar outfit in the WAG group’s photo, but this time she was posing in the front row and holding a See’s Candies bag.

Ohtani and Tanaka have two children. It looks like they were able to get a babysitter for these two games, especially because it might not have been safe for them in the insane heat Los Angeles is experiencing this weekend.

Ohtani and his teammates are looking to turn up the heat on Atlanta by going ahead 2-0 in the series.

Kyle Tucker started the season as the Dodgers’ No. 2 hitter.

There’s a chance he ends it batting in that spot.

No joke.

By the time the Dodgers reach the World Series, Kyle Tucker — yes, that Kyle Tucker — could be back in the heart of their order.

That probably won’t happen over the remainder of the National League Division Series against the Braves. But making the $240 million disappointment a focal part of the offense will be something the Dodgers might have to eventually consider, especially if their two best left-handed hitters prove to be physically compromised.

Shohei Ohtani isn’t expected to be close to full strength in these playoffs because of discomfort in his right arm and left knee. Freddie Freeman is dealing with a right knee problem. 

Ohtani batted second for the Dodgers in the first two games of the NLDS, and Freeman batted cleanup. Each of them collected a single on Saturday in their 5-3 win in Game 1, with Freeman also drawing a key fourth-inning walk that set up a two-run home run by Teoscar Hernandez.

Manager Dave Roberts isn’t about to drop Ohtani or Freeman in the order. The more games the Dodgers play, however, the more Ohtani’s and Freeman’s bodies could feel it, and that could require Roberts to rethink whether Tucker should continue batting in the bottom half of the lineup.

Batting sixth, Tucker was 2 for 4 with a two-run home run that was ultimately the difference for the Dodgers in Game 1, but the idea of him taking a more prominent role in the offense shouldn’t be viewed as an overreaction to an isolated incident.

This was the version of Tucker who quietly emerged over the second half of September as the Dodgers cruised into the postseason.

Over his final 17 regular-season games, Tucker batted .333 with five home runs and 11 RBIs. He registered an OPS of 1.072.

Tucker had a number of teases over a grueling regular season, showing flashes of the hitter he used to be, only to immediately revert back to his season-long slump. Statistically, he finished with his worst regular-season numbers since becoming a full-time player, as he batted .233 with 17 home runs and 70 RBIs. 

Because they had a bye in the wild-card round, the Dodgers had a five-day break between their regular-season finale in San Francisco and their opening game of the NLDS. Considering how many stop-and-gos Tucker experienced in the regular season, the fact he was able to maintain his form over five days of inactivity was a promising sign.

“Everyone stayed ready,” Tucker said. “Just did some intrasquads and live BPs, just practice in general. Everyone was prepared for what we needed to do once these games started. They’ve been doing it for a while now. Everyone kind of has an idea of what they need to do once these games roll around.”

Tucker wasn’t the same after breaking his right hand while playing for the Cubs last year, and Dodgers coaches think they have unlocked something to offset the physical changes that he might have undergone then. If they did, they might have found a luxurious insurance policy for Ohtani and Freeman.

Given where Ohtani and Freeman are physically, Tucker could be positioned to provide something they might not be able to: power.

The Dodgers are generally a home run-dependent team, and the low-scoring environment of the postseason will make them even more so. To that point, every run they scored in Game 1 was scored via the home run.

Regardless of whether Tucker moves up in the order or just adds length to the lineup, the Dodgers will be delighted if he continues to hit — delighted for not only the team but also for Tucker individually.

“I think we all know the struggles he had this year,” Roberts said. “I give him a lot of credit for grinding through it, not running from it, always posting and kind of getting to the other side of it.”

He might now be ready to deliver for the Dodgers when they need it most.