Yamamoto Dominates, Hernández Powers Dodgers to 2-1 NLDS Lead Over Braves

ATLANTA — October tends to strip away pretense, revealing the true character of baseball players and teams. The Los Angeles Dodgers, veterans of deep postseason runs in recent years, possess a handful of established certainties. One is that Kiké Hernández will inevitably deliver a defining hit. Another is that Yoshinobu Yamamoto ranks as the premier big-game pitcher on the planet.

The convergence of those two truths on Tuesday night yielded the Dodgers’ most significant victory of the season, pushing the Atlanta Braves to the precipice of elimination. Propelled by Hernández’s two-run home run that shattered a scoreless deadlock and seven masterful innings from Yamamoto, Los Angeles stifled Atlanta 3-1 to seize a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-five National League Division Series.

Before a capacity crowd at Truist Park buzzing with anticipation for a dream pitching duel — Yamamoto, the reigning World Series MVP, against Chris Sale, a future Hall of Famer sustaining elite form — the Dodgers executed their signature formula of the past three Octobers: doing just enough to scratch out a pivotal win.

Yamamoto personifies that resilience, from his heroics in last year’s World Series clincher to his performance in Game 3. He struck out a postseason career-high 10 batters, surrendering just four hits and one run while baffling Braves hitters with a six-pitch arsenal that generated 17 swings and misses.

“All of my pitches were really good,” Yamamoto said, a sentiment the Braves readily echoed. Atlanta entered Game 3 fully aware of the challenge ahead. Yamamoto serves as the ultimate October litmus test for an offense because of his ability to shapeshift: one start he overwhelms with power, the next he dissects the zone with command, the next he dazzles with spin. On certain nights, like Tuesday, he embodies all three simultaneously.

“He just has a way to just make pitches,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “calm his heartbeat.”

The first three innings offered his pulse little reason to race. Atlanta managed a single baserunner — via a bunt single. Meanwhile, Sale was similarly carving up the Dodgers’ lineup until a solitary mistake pitch to the No. 9 hitter altered the trajectory.

Hernández, however, is no ordinary bottom-of-the-order occupant. He is the quintessential October performer, boasting a career postseason OPS 120 points higher than his regular-season mark. Starting in place of third baseman Max Muncy — one of several left-handed hitters either rested or dropped in the order to counter Sale — Hernández followed a leadoff single by Andy Pages by depositing a Sale changeup into the left-field seats. Sale, predominantly a fastball-slider pitcher, opened Hernández’s at-bat with a changeup and then returned to the well once more.

“We needed a little bit of that Kiké dust,” Roberts said. “And he’s always prepared. And he loves moments like this. He has a way to lock in.”

He wasn’t the only one. Freddie Freeman, another cornerstone of the Dodgers’ back-to-back championships, compounded Sale’s nightmare inning with a swing worthy of a future Hall of Fame highlight reel: not only did he catch up to a 96 mph sinker boring in on his hands, but he manipulated his bat — nearly vertical at contact — to drive it over the right-field fence.

It was Freeman’s first postseason appearance at Truist Park since 2021, the year he departed the Braves for Los Angeles in free agency. The boos that greeted his first at-bat only intensified after he staked the Dodgers to a 3-0 lead.

“One bad inning can kind of ruin a whole game,” Sale said. “Yanked a changeup to Kiké. We all know what he can do in October when the lights are bright.”

Sale was on the mound only because Atlanta manager Walt Weiss granted him an extra day of rest following his relief appearance to close out the Wild Card Series against Philadelphia. Sale aimed to pitch deep into Game 3; the Dodgers aimed to chase him early. Los Angeles succeeded on that front, even though Sale finished with five innings, seven strikeouts, and zero walks.

“One bad inning can kind of ruin a whole game. Yanked a changeup to Kiké [Hernández]. We all know what he can do in October when the lights are bright.”

Chris Sale

“Getting Chris Sale out of the game after five innings is a huge win no matter what the score is,” Freeman said.

The score narrowed to 3-1 when Yamamoto encountered his first turbulence in the fifth inning — prompting mound visits from pitching coach Mark Prior and Hernández, who, Yamamoto recounted, “told me just be yourself, even though that was a little bit like a dirty word.”

Mauricio Dubón led off with a single. Lane Thomas followed with another. After an Austin Riley popup, Rowdy Tellez worked a four-pitch walk — Yamamoto’s lone free pass of the night. With the bases loaded and one out, Yamamoto induced a run-scoring groundout from Drake Baldwin before Ronald Acuña Jr. grounded a 3-1 splitter weakly to end the inning.

From there, Yamamoto retired six consecutive hitters, finishing with 62 strikes on 98 pitches and a trail of weak contact. He generated 17 swings on his fastball without allowing a hit; nine curveball swings produced zero hits; and the only hit on 10 splitter swings came from Dubón.

“I usually care about the pitch count during the regular season,” Yamamoto said. “But it’s the postseason, and one thing I was trying to do was one inning at a time. And then the worst scenario, I can give up a few runs. But just one inning at a time, and that should lead me deeper into the game.”

The seven innings positioned the Dodgers ideally for the days ahead. With Tanner Scott covering the eighth and former closer Edwin Díaz — working to reclaim his ninth-inning role — navigating a leadoff double for a clean ninth, Los Angeles heads into Game 4 on Wednesday with a fully stocked, well-rested bullpen for the “Battle of the Tylers,” where Tyler Glasnow will oppose Atlanta’s No. 2 starter, Tyler Mahle.

Both can only aspire to replicate Yamamoto’s standard. Over the past three postseasons, he has logged 17⅓ more innings than any other pitcher while maintaining a 2.14 ERA. The pitcher with the second-most innings and the lowest ERA among starters with 25-plus innings in that span: Tarik Skubal, who would start a potential Game 5 for the Dodgers should Atlanta force a decider.

“When he goes out there, I’m more confident that we’re going to win no matter what happens,” Skubal said of Yamamoto. “I’ve seen him respond to some adversity, getting tagged early in games, getting tagged late in games. He always responds the right way. And all you can ask out of your teammate is the guy that’s going to go out there and do everything he can to keep us in a ballgame. He does that. So it’s not fair to expect it, but it’s not surprising at all.”

None of it was, really. Yamamoto dominating. Hernández producing. The Dodgers winning. They are intertwined constants of October, arriving at precisely the right moment to keep alive hopes of baseball’s first three-peat since the New York Yankees dynasty of 1998 to 2000.

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