The Atlanta Braves have survived back-to-back starts from former Cy Young award winners to travel home with a 1-1 tie in the NLDS. This evening, they will be deploying their own former Cy Young award winner in Chris Sale in hopes of taking a series lead against the Dodgers and put them one step closer to advancing to the NLCS for the first time since they won the World Series in 2021.
Chris Sale was one of the heroes in the Wild Card series making a great start and then a few days later closing out
the series in relief. There are debates whether that is why he is pitching today instead of yesterday, but fortunately, the Braves won yesterday despite it being a bullpen game.
This season Chris Sale faced the Dodgers twice. The first time was in early May where he went 7.0 innings and gave up two earned runs on five hits, and zero walks while striking out seven. The second time he faced them was at the end of the August where he pitched a complete game shutout and struck out eleven.
Needless to say, the Braves need to win today with their best pitcher on the mound. Tonight is going to be a huge momentum shift one way or another for both teams.
The Dodgers are bringing in Yoshinobu Yamamoto after he pitched the best regular season of his career. He started off relatively slow by his standards, but has been lights out since the start of August with an ERA of 2.12 and a K/BB ratio of 4.67. He has been a bit lucky with a BABIP against him of only .196, but those numbers are still impressive. The Braves will have to fight to win this game.
The last time Yamamoto faced the Braves was the same game Sale pitched the complete game. Yamamoto pitched well in that game too going 6.1 innings allowing one earned run on a solo HR and striking out eight to only walking one.
The key to this game is likely going to be the Braves doing what they did last game, where they worked counts and drove up the pitch count. Believe it or not, the Braves lead all postseason teams in walks. They have left quite a few runners on base this postseason, but the runs will come if they continue to put runners on. The Braves also lead in HRs and TB, so mathematically the goal here is to keep doing what they are doing and hope for some clutch hits with runners on.
This is easier said than done against Yamamoto, but to be fair the same thing could have been said about Blake Snell. Winning the game tonight would give the Braves a chance to do what many likely thought was impossible, and that is clinch the series at home tomorrow. Tonight’s game is huge.
First pitch is scheduled for 6:00 pm EDT.
Game Info
Game Time: Tuesday, October 6th, 6:00 pm EDT
Location: Truist Park, Atlanta, GA
Watch: FS1 / FOX ONE
Radio/Audio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan and ESPN Radio
