Dodgers get off to hot start, take NLDS Game 1 behind Tarik Skubal, power bats

LOS ANGELES — They were bound to start off hot – one way or the other.

Teoscar Hernandez, Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy each homered to back Tarik Skubal as the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-3, in Game 1 of their best-of-five National League Division Series on Saturday afternoon.

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“To win Game 1 is certainly important, very important,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We could have deployed our starters any way we wanted, but to have Blake (Snell) going tomorrow to follow up with what Tarik did today and knowing that you got Yama (Yoshinobu Yamamoto) in the holster for Game 3, we’re in a good spot.

“It all starts with winning Game 1.”

With Southern California baking in an October heat wave, the Dodgers announced attendance of 50,194 – their lowest for a postseason game at Dodger Stadium since Game 4 of the 2016 NLDS against the Washington Nationals (49,617). That game was played in much more pleasant weather than Saturday’s 100 degrees at first pitch – but on a Tuesday afternoon.

“It was toasty,” Tucker said.

“My feet were hot. Feet were really hot,” Muncy said of the baked dirt. “Field was dry. There’s nothing you can do about that.

“It was just really hot. That’s all there was to it, it was hot.”

Skubal, an Arizona native, was unimpressed.

“This is nothing, huh?” he said with a laugh. “I played a Little League game in 127 (degrees).

“Those kids from Havasu and Yuma in the Little League World Series – I think they went almost all the way too … Yeah, yeah, obviously better hitters (Saturday). But it’s up there with as hot a baseball game that you can play in.”

Skubal certainly made himself at home in his new home.

The first six postseason starts of Skubal’s career – all as he tried to drag the Detroit Tigers deeper into October – came on the road. Saturday afternoon was the first time he took the mound for a home team in a postseason game.

It started with a single by Braves leadoff man Drake Baldwin (who went 6 for 12 with two doubles and a home run in the Braves’ three-game sweep of the Dodgers in Atlanta in August). Skubal put his foot down after that, retiring the next 15 Braves in order, including seven on strikeouts.

He didn’t even go to a three-ball count until facing Austin Riley in the fifth inning. He struck him out to end the inning.

Along the way, Skubal hit 101.1 mph with a fastball in the second inning.

“I think I was just trying to match the temperature out there,” Skubal joked.

“I think the juices flow a little bit different in postseason games. I think if you just go back and look at average velocity for my starts in postseasons and compare them to regular season games, it’s a little bit different in general. So when I reach back a little bit in postseason stuff, there were some good counts to kind of let it go in the second inning.”

But the heat seemed to finally get to Skubal in the sixth. He gave up a leadoff home run to Sean Murphy and walked two in the inning, throwing 28 pitches to drive his pitch count to 94 for the day.

Skubal said is was more about discretion in a 2-1 game – pitching around Ozzie Albies once he lost count leverage and not wanting to give the Braves a chance “to change the game.” He got the left-handed Matt Olson to fly out to end the inning and his start.

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“It’s not like any pitch is bigger than the next, but just understanding the situation,” Skubal explained. “I think everyone in this clubhouse and team understands situation. … A walk isn’t the worst thing in the world there. Matt Olson is an extremely good hitter, but he’s also left-handed. So it kind of gives me some confidence, and you can pitch around some different situations.

“Yeah, I think it’s just understanding the game of baseball.”

Even with the wobble in the sixth, it was a real-time expression of the biggest advantage the Dodgers have in this series – and the value of the first-round bye that is making it even bigger.

Skubal had a week off since his last regular-season start, long enough to throw two bullpen sessions in preparation for his first postseason start with the Dodgers – and long enough for the Dodgers to line up their formidable starting rotation as they desired.

On the other side, Braves manager Walt Weiss was brutally honest when questioned about his pitching plan before the game. Already limited in his starting pitching options due to injuries, Weiss used his best one (Chris Sale) to close out the third game of their Wild Card Series against the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday.

“Look – I don’t know how this is going to go,” he said, faced with the prospect of opening the NLDS with back-to-back bullpen games if Sale is not ready to pitch Sunday.

It was going pretty well for three innings with left-hander Dylan Dodd in the game. He held the Dodgers to two singles while striking out four in the first three innings.

But Weiss’ plan went off the rails in the fourth inning. Right-hander Victor Mederos walked Freddie Freeman and then left a cutter over the heart of the plate to Hernandez. He sent it 431 feet into the left-field pavilion for a two-run home run, his ninth home run in 34 postseason games with the Dodgers.

Two innings later, AJ Smith-Shawver had taken over. He gave up a one-out single to Hernandez then Tucker got his own fat fastball, 97 mph at the top of the zone, and turned on it. Four hundred and eight feet later, the Dodgers had a 4-1 lead.

Two batters later, it was 5-1 after Muncy sent a towering fly ball into the seats down the right field line.

“It’s really, really hard to string together a bunch of hits. In the postseason, it’s almost as hard as ever to get two, three, four hits in a row,” Muncy said. “And so any time you can get a guy on base, if you can get a long ball, it’s huge. Not that you’re swinging for it. But as we’ve seen in a lot of postseasons, it definitely helps. It definitely helps because, like I said, you’re just not going to string together four or five hits – especially in a bullpen game. As soon as you get a couple guys on, there’s another guy coming in, and then you don’t know what he’s attacking you with, and so it’s really hard.”

Brock Stewart and Alex Vesia each followed Skubal with a hitless inning of relief. But Tanner Scott gave up a two-run home run to Ozzie Albies – the fifth home run of the day in the overheated atmosphere – before Roberts turned to Evan Phillips to get the final out.

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