The Los Angeles Dodgers secured passage to the next round of the MLB playoffs via a 2-1 win against the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night. The defending champs are now set to take on the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series for the second year in a row.
The first game will kick off at 8:07 PM ET at Atlanta’s Truist Park, where lefty Max Fried is to take the mound for the home team. The other Max, Max Scherzer was in line to start the series opener for L.A but chances of that have waned somewhat as the player was made to close the last inning of the NLDS. Head coach Dave Roberts still plans on starting Scherzer in the championship series, yet that isn’t set in stone.
The Dodgers, who are heading into the stretch as the favorites to repeat as World Series winners where the baseball odds are concerned, closed out in five games against San Francisco. They were the two teams with the best records in the league but Los Angeles will be the one heading to what will be a fifth NLCS in the last six years. As noted above, they won’t have home advantage against the Braves, although they won 18 more regular-season games than Atlanta, as they are a Wild Card team.
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League rules do not permit Wild Card sides home-field advantage in a Division Series or League Championship. This does not apply to the World Series, however. And, if the Dodgers move on to the Fall Classic, they would have home advantage over whoever comes out of the series between the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox.
The Braves are standing in their way at the moment, having beaten the Milwaukee Brewers in four games in the NLDS, one game fewer than Los Angeles needed to dispatch the Giants in their own series.
As far as postseason play goes, the Dodgers and Braves are hardly strangers. This will be their third playoff meeting in the last four years. The Dodgers had the upper hand in the NLDS in 2018 and, despite building a 3-1 lead in 2020, the Braves still fell short in a seven-game series.
Meanwhile, Joc Pederson hit two pinch-hit home runs for Atlanta in the Division Series and will present a huge threat to his former team. Pederson played 64 playoff games for the Dodgers, the second-most in the team’s history. The Braves have a few more former Dodgers players in Travis d’Arnaud, Jesse Chavez, and Terrance Gore. Their president of baseball operations, Alex Anthopoulos, was part of Los Angeles’ front office a few years ago.
The inbound NLCS will mark the fifth meeting between the two teams. The Dodgers, who came out on top of the last two series shared between the pair, beat Atlanta in four games back in the 2013 NLDS. The Braves have to go as far back as 1996 to recall a series win against the Dodgers - they swept them that year.
They also played a best-of-three National League tiebreaker in 1959 when the Braves were in Milwaukee, with the Dodgers winning 2-1. The tiebreaker games counted as regular-season matches, though.
Los Angeles beat Atlanta in four of the six games they played against them during the recent regular season, losing two of three in Atlanta between June 4-6 and then sweeping a three-game stretch on their home turf between August 30 and September 1.
Atlanta registered just 88 wins in the regular season, 19 fewer than the Giants, who just bowed out to the Dodgers. They had to dig deep to even make it to where they are right now. They were nursing a 30-35 record on June 16, eight games behind the NL East Lead and, as of July 28, were still six games behind. They didn’t grasp the lead in the division until August 15.
With a few key players already out, Atlanta is likely to start the series without outfielder Jorge Soler, their leadoff hitter. Soler was taken off the roster before Game 4 against the Brewers after testing positive for COVID-19.
The rotations are still mostly unknown, particularly past the first game of the series. Atlanta could field Charlie Morton in Game 2 but they’re mulling over giving him an extra day to recharge after he pitched on three days' rest in Game 4 against Milwaukee.
Fans could catch the NLCS on TBS. Brian Anderson is set to be on play-by-play alongside analyst Ron Darling. Jeff Francoeur will be in the booth as well. Lauren Shelani will remain on as an on-field reporter for said network, having covered the Dodgers in their series against the St. Louis Cardinals and Giants.
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