The Atlanta Braves have opened up this five-game series on the short-end of the stick to start things off, as they took a 5-3 loss on the chin against the Los Angeles Dodgers to begin the 2026 NLDS.
It’s a bit of a flattering result, since Tarik Skubal spent most of the game in complete control and the Braves were down by as much as four after AJ Smith-Shawver gave up a pair of dingers that really gave the Dodgers serious control of the game.
As far as the questions go about who did or didn’t pitch
for the Braves today, it’s clear that Walt Weiss had bullpen load management in mind with some of the decisions that he made today. “It’s a challenge. Even today was going to be tough for us to chase from behind because of how we emptied the tank on Thursday night,” said Weiss when he was asked about how the bullpen is looking for the rest of the series.“
“We weren’t going to pitch Fuentes from behind. It would have been 4 out of 5. Then he’s at risk tomorrow in a game that we’re up. Suarez was down because of the elbow, missing three months. We weren’t going to use him at all.”
When Weiss was asked about whether or not the Braves have enough pitching to make it through this series, Weiss remained bullish about the pitching staff. “Look, you’ve got [Chris] Sale and [Tyler] Mahle still. Tomorrow a much more rested bullpen,” stated Weiss. Yeah, I don’t have any worries about that, about having enough pitching. We’ve got plenty of pitching.“
Speaking of Chris Sale, his potential availability for the Los Angeles portion of this series has been a big question. Obviously, the Braves would like to steal one on the road and gain home field advantage for the rest of the series and it’ll be a big question as to whether or not Sale can or will be fully effective since he’s already taken on a heavy workload here in the Postseason.
Weiss was asked directly about his pitching plan for Game 2 and whether it involved Chris Sale started and he explained that it’s too soon to figure it out. “We still haven’t decided yet. The game just got over,” said Weiss. “We’ll have some conversations about this. So not sure who’s going to start. That’s where we’re at right now.”
I’d imagine that they’re going to think it over and wait until tomorrow afternoon to announce who the starter is. If it’s Sale, then I’d imagine that it’d be a similar case to what happened the morning of Game 3 where Sale barges into Weiss’s office and tells him that he’s good to go. If it happens, it’ll be very intriguing to see how long he goes and how effective he’ll be. It’ll certainly be one of the future Hall-of-Famer’s biggest tests of his career — and doing so at age-37, no less.
Either way, it’s tough to win games when the offense lies dormant for most of it and that was the case for the Braves. All of the runs today were scored via the long ball, but Atlanta was unable to really do much of anything to Tarik Skubal while he was out there (outside of Sean Murphy’s homer) and then only Ozzie Albies’s ninth-inning dinger kept the score respectable in the end. The offense will have to be more consistent — easier said than done, I know, but it’s the Postseason. The job’s gotta get done.
Either way, Weiss tipped his cap to Skubal and the performance he put on against Atlanta’s lineup today. “[Skubal] looked like he was in top form today. He’s obviously a really good pitcher. Yeah, he was tough,” said Weiss when he was asked about Skubal’s start. “We knew it was going to be a rough ride, but yeah, he did a helluva job.”
It’s not going to get much easier going forward considering the quality of LA’s pitching staff but again, there’s no choice but to execute and the lineup has to get better going forward. Momentum is a bit overrated in my opinion but hopefully what the Braves were able to do in the ninth inning of Game 1 will carry over to Game 2. Otherwise, Atlanta might be in a hole once they return to Cobb County. We’ll see what happens, folks.
