Los Angeles beat Atlanta 3-1 on Tuesday at Truist Park to take a 2-1 lead in the National League Division Series.
The sharpest detail was on the mound, where Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out 10 over seven innings and set a postseason career high for strikeouts.
Yamamoto Controls Game 3 From Start To Finish
Road games in October are usually won by surviving the home crowd early. Yamamoto did something better than survive. Over seven innings he allowed one run on four hits and one walk, struck out 10, and gave Los Angeles the kind of start that lets an entire dugout breathe. Atlanta hitters rarely looked settled, and the few chances they built never turned into a sustained rally against him.
The line matters because of its balance. Ten strikeouts show dominance, one walk shows control, and four hits over seven innings show that Atlanta was not stringing together quality contact even when it put the ball in play. This was not a start saved by defense or luck. It was a start dictated by the pitcher, pitch after pitch, in a building that had every reason to be loud with the series tied 1-1.
Yamamoto summed it up without any excess after the game:
“I was confident and able to control all my pitches today.” Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers pitcher (through a translator), published by AP via Now Georgia
Control of all pitches is the whole story in nine words. When a starter commands his full mix in October, hitters cannot sit on a single offering, and managers cannot time a bullpen move to a predictable crack in the outing. Atlanta kept waiting for that crack. It never really came, and by the time Yamamoto handed the game over, Los Angeles needed only a short bridge to the finish.
One Inning Of Power Beats Chris Sale
The offense Yamamoto needed arrived in a single inning. In the fourth, Kike Hernandez hit a two run homer and Freddie Freeman added a solo homer, both off Chris Sale, turning a scoreless game into a 3-0 Los Angeles lead. Sale allowed three runs in five innings, and those three runs were all the Dodgers scored all night. They were also all the Dodgers needed.
Freeman’s homer carried the emotional weight of the night. The Canadian international and former Brave homered in his return to Atlanta, and the swing was the 18th postseason home run of his career, tying him for 10th on the all time postseason list. October home runs in a former home park always draw a reaction, and this one quieted Truist Park at the exact moment Atlanta needed noise. Hernandez’s two run shot did the practical damage first, Freeman solo shot did the psychological damage right behind it.
Atlanta’s only run came in the fifth, when Drake Baldwin drove in a run with a bases loaded groundout. That sequence underlines the Yamamoto effect: even with the bases loaded, Atlanta produced an out that scored a run rather than the big hit that changes a series. Edwin Diaz then earned the save for Los Angeles, working around a leadoff double in the ninth to close a 3-1 win that felt controlled far beyond the two run margin.
Atlanta reached this round by beating Philadelphia in the Wild Card round, covered in Atlanta’s series win over the Phillies, but Game 3 showed the step up in class a division series demands. For the other league’s picture on the same October track, see Tampa Bay pushing New York to the brink in the ALDS.
By The Numbers
- Final score: Los Angeles Dodgers 3, Atlanta Braves 1
- Series: Los Angeles leads the NLDS 2-1
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto: 7 innings, 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, 10 strikeouts
- Kike Hernandez: two run home run off Chris Sale in the fourth inning
- Freddie Freeman: solo home run, the 18th postseason homer of his career
- Chris Sale: 3 runs allowed in 5 innings; Edwin Diaz recorded the save
One Win From The NLCS
Los Angeles, the two time defending champions in this bracket, now stands one win from the National League Championship Series, and the path there runs through the formula Game 3 displayed: an ace start, one decisive inning of power, and a clean finish. Teams do not always need to dominate a whole game in October. Sometimes they need to dominate the right seven innings and the right single inning at the plate, and the Dodgers did both on Tuesday.
Atlanta, meanwhile, is left with the narrowest of margins. The Braves scored once, on a groundout, against the best version of Yamamoto, and they now face elimination pressure with the memory of a home crowd that never got its big inning. Game 3 will be remembered simply in Los Angeles: Yamamoto took the ball on the road, controlled all of his pitches, and moved the Dodgers to the edge of another NLCS.
