Braves go for sweep of Dodgers as Chris Sale duels another ace

LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 08: Chris Sale #51 of the Atlanta Braves pitches during the game between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium on Friday, May 8, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tom Wilson/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty

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What is the story about?

When the Braves took a series against the Dodgers in May by winning consecutive 7-2 contests after dropping the first game, it was an unexpected but welcome surprise amid an incredible two-month run of performance for the squad. With the Braves winning the first two games of this series against the Dodgers amid something resembling a groggy slide, they’ve pulled off the unexpected and might be righting their careening ship a bit. Among the particularly gladdening things in last night’s game was that

the team busted out of a long offensive funk — it had played seven straight games with a teamwide xwOBA below league average (and most of those games were well, well below league average), but then busted out with a .472 mark in yesterday’s win. That .472 was the team’s third-highest of the season, and its highest since April 10.

Possible signs of resurgence aside, this game offers quite a lot of intrigue in its own right. For one, the Braves haven’t swept the Dodgers since May of 2013. For another, it’s a second consecutive “Chris Sale pitches against another ace” matchup. Last week, it was Sale versus pitching fWAR leader Jacob Misiorowski. This time, he’ll square off against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is currently 11th in MLB in pitching fWAR (Sale is sixth).

Now in his third season stateside, Yamamoto’s stats are a bit off his stellar 2025 campaign (60/70/74 ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-), but still very good: 63/76/80. He’s been durable and consistent. Impressively, Yamamoto hasn’t had back-to-back starts with an FIP- above 100 this year, and it’s only happened in terms of xFIP- once. Generally dominant, he hasn’t really been blown up this year — sometimes there are not-so-great peripherals starts, but he makes do. So, this will be a tough nut to crack for the Braves.

But, Chris Sale is also a tough nut to crack. He enters tonight’s start with basically video game numbers for a starter: 53/54/65, and 4.9 fWAR in “just” 135 innings. It’s been pretty much a repeat of his 2024 Cy Young-winning campaign so far, with only the context that Misiorowski and Cristopher Sanchez are destroying hitters even more lingering out in the atmosphere.

The Braves have squared off against Yamamoto twice. They faced him back in 2024 in a 9-0 shellacking where Yamamoto departed after four innings with just a 1-0 lead and a 3/2 K/BB ratio. Then, he carved up the ineffectual 2025 version of the club in a close, 2-1 game in which the Dodgers prevailed. On the flip side, the Dodgers have seen Sale a fair bit over the last three years. They won the game he started against them in Los Angeles earlier this year, despite Sale pitching really well. They also knocked him around in 2025 as part of that season-opening disastrous road trip. Sale also beat them in September 2024 with a good start.

So, expect to see good pitching… and probably something crazy (which may be the absence of good pitching) given the way the first two games of this series have gone.