LOS ANGELES – Tarik Skubal walked off the mound after drawing a flyout from Atlanta Braves first baseman Matt Olson to get out of the sixth inning and looked over at Blake Snell once he got in the dugout.
"Has it been this hot all game?" Skubal asked.
"It's amazing what your brain can do," Skubal added as he reflected on a scorching 103-degree day at Dodger Stadium. "In certain circumstances and moments, it's amazing what you can control and kind of eliminate. I actually didn't think it was horrible when I was pitching, ... but yeah, it was a hot one."
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made no secret of his preference to play at night when asked about it earlier in the week, but once the San Diego Padres swept the Chicago Cubs in the wild card series
on Wednesday, the Dodgers were boxed into a 1 p.m. local start time amid a heat wave fueled by El Niño. It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit when Skubal threw his first pitch Saturday and the temperature continued to rise from there in an eventual 5-3 win that gave the Dodgers a 1-0 series lead in the NLDS.
It was the Dodgers' hottest postseason game on record since Game 1 of the 2017 World Series.
But as Roberts looked back on that day nine years ago, he emphasized that there's nothing anyone can truly do about the weather except to stay hydrated. The Braves felt prepared, with Lane Thomas and manager Walt Weiss noting pregame it actually felt a little cooler than summers in Atlanta due to the humidity.
Teoscar Hernández got the Dodgers on the board with a towering 431-foot, two-run homer in the bottom of the fourth that set the tone offensively for LA; he echoed the sentiment.
"I don't think we were too concerned about the heat or anything like that," Hernández said in Spanish. "We were focused on doing what we needed to do to win, try and win the game."
This wasn't the hottest game Skubal has ever played in; growing up in Kingman, Arizona, he claimed he played in a little league game in Lake Havasu that was 127 degrees.
"A little bit different game," he said. "... But yeah, it's up there with as hot a baseball game as you can play in."
And though the sun beating down over Chavez Ravine wasn't something Skubal was fully cognizant of throughout the 94 pitches he threw in six innings, with seven strikeouts and just one run allowed, the two-time Cy Young winner knew the best thing he could do was be efficient.
After giving up a leadoff single to Braves DH Drake Baldwin, Skubal retired the next 15 batters he faced in a row until Sean Murphy took him deep to left center field for a solo shot to open up the top of the sixth.
"That always helps you maintain a little bit of stamina," Skubal said. "It's hot, no denying that. But every team's playing in the same conditions we are, so it doesn't really matter. It shouldn't really impact how you are mentally. ... Just go out there and play baseball and try to drink water. That's really it."
Tarik Skubal has retired 15 straight 😤 pic.twitter.com/ex155blukX
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 3, 2026
Skubal has mentioned before that he likes to save his bigger pitches for the ends of his outings to empty the tank, but his hardest pitch of Game 1 on Saturday was a 101.1 mph fastball in the second inning. It could've been the postseason making his "juices flow differently," or the fact that he was simply in a good count that called for it. Or the excitement of the Dodger Stadium crowd on their feet as he sensed the end of an inning closing in.
But Skubal jokingly offered another theory.
"I think I was just trying to match the temperature out there."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Tarik Skubal, Dodgers handled scorching heat and hot Braves bats in NLDS opener
