Sports

Dodgers Beat Braves 4-1 in Game 4, Reach Third Straight NLCS as Three-Peat Bid Continues

Abdul Mannan 2 hours ago • 8 min read

A batter swings at a pitch under the stadium floodlights during a night Major League Baseball playoff game, with the catcher and umpire behind home plate and a packed crowd beyond.

The Los Angeles Dodgers kept their shot at baseball history alive on Wednesday night, closing out the Atlanta Braves with a 4-1 victory in Game 4 of the National League Division Series at Truist Park to win the best-of-five set 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series for the third consecutive year.

The two-time defending World Series champions are now eight wins away from becoming the first National League franchise to win three straight World Series titles — a feat no club has managed since the New York Yankees completed their three-peat between 1998 and 2000.

Pages delivers the breakthrough

The game turned in the seventh inning, with the score tied 1-1 and the Dodgers staring at yet another night of missed chances.

Atlanta starter Tyler Mahle, brilliant through six innings of one-hit ball, was chased after a one-out single from Teoscar Hernández. Reliever Didier Fuentes then issued back-to-back two-out walks — one to pinch-hitting rookie sensation Josue De Paula, who coolly laid off a 3-and-1 slider, and one to Kyle Tucker — loading the bases and forcing the Braves into another pitching change.

Veteran reliever Robert Suarez got the call, and after falling behind in the count, he challenged centre fielder Andy Pages with a 99.7 mph fastball on a full count. Pages lined it straight through the middle of the infield for a two-run single, finally cracking open a scoreless October night.

It was, according to Reuters, the Dodgers’ first hit with runners in scoring position in the entire series after starting 0-for-14. Pages finished the night with two of the Dodgers’ five hits and two of their three RBIs.

For Pages, the moment carried the weight of a year of doubt. The 25-year-old endured an infamous 4-for-51 postseason slump last October, one of the coldest stretches in recent playoff memory, and opened this NLDS 0-for-7 — reviving talk that he might be benched as he was during stretches of last year’s World Series. Manager Dave Roberts, however, publicly backed his young outfielder before the game, insisting the Dodgers would need him to be an active part of their October run. Pages validated that faith, finishing with four hits over the final two games of the series.

“From the beginning of the series I was looking for a moment like that,” Pages said afterward, via Fox Sports. “You try to get a good pitch and swing at a good pitch, and I was lucky to do that.”

How the game unfolded

Atlanta struck first, and quickly. In the bottom of the first, Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow’s wild pitch allowed Michael Harris II to score, giving the home crowd an early jolt.

The Dodgers answered in the top of the second without needing a hit. Shohei Ohtani reached home plate when Braves shortstop Mauricio Dubón’s throwing error sailed wide, tying the game at 1-1 — and that is where the score stayed for four tense innings as both pitching staffs dug in.

Glasnow battled through 4 1/3 innings in his first appearance since September 24, allowing just one run on one hit but walking five and striking out five. The Dodgers’ bullpen then did the rest: Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez, Tanner Scott and Edwin Díaz combined to allow no runs on two hits over the final 4 1/3 innings, retiring the final seven Atlanta batters in order. Henriquez earned his first career postseason victory, and Díaz recorded his second save of the series.

Mahle was the tough-luck loser for Atlanta. The Braves right-hander allowed two runs, only one of them earned, on three hits over 6 1/3 innings, striking out four and walking one.

Max Muncy provided the insurance in the top of the ninth, crushing a solo home run — his third long ball of this postseason and the 19th of his career in the playoffs, according to multiple outlets — to make it 4-1.

Atlanta’s situational hitting sinks another October

For the Braves, the story of the series was written in red ink with men on base. Atlanta finished the four-game set 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position, and went 0-for-7 in the clincher.

In Game 4 alone, Atlanta wasted Ozzie Albies’ leadoff double in the sixth, the inning before Pages broke the tie. Harris provided two of Atlanta’s three hits, including a double, but the Braves could not convert traffic into runs.

The NL East champions have now failed to advance past the division series since winning the World Series in 2021 — five straight Octobers ending in frustration.

A familiar NLCS rematch awaits

The Dodgers will open the National League Championship Series on Sunday in Milwaukee against the Brewers, who finished off the San Diego Padres 3-1 in Game 4 of their NLDS on Wednesday night to close out that series 3-1, setting up a rematch of last year’s NLCS.

The matchup has a clean dramatic shape: Milwaukee owns the best record in baseball, and Los Angeles owns the last two World Series trophies. The Dodgers swept the Brewers in four games in last year’s championship series; Milwaukee gets another chance to end the dynasty.

For Los Angeles, this is the eighth consecutive postseason series victory and the 14th straight postseason appearance for the franchise — a stretch that has produced five World Series appearances and three championships, according to Reuters.

“This is the best organization in sports, top to bottom,” Roberts said in the clubhouse after the win, via theScore. “We’re smarter, we’re better, and we’re tougher.”

Why It Matters

Pages’ redemption is the Dodgers’ whole ethos

No single moment captures how the Dodgers operate in October better than the seventh inning on Wednesday. A 25-year-old who was benched during last year’s title run, slumping 0-for-7 to start the series, facing a full count against a 99.7 mph heater — and the organization bet on him anyway.

The Dodgers have built the most expensive, most talented roster in baseball, but talent alone does not win five rounds of playoff series. Patience does. Roberts’ public vote of confidence before Game 3 was not sentimentality; it was the same institutional discipline that has carried Los Angeles to five World Series appearances in this 14-year October streak. Organizations that flinch in October — that bench their young players at the first cold stretch — do not win eight straight postseason series. The Dodgers’ competitive advantage is not just that they have more talent than everyone else; it is that they trust their talent longer than everyone else.

Pages’ swing will be remembered as the hit of the series, but it was really the payoff of a year-long institutional bet.

The modern October bullpen script, executed to perfection

Glasnow’s line — 4 1/3 innings, five walks, one run — would have been a disaster in a previous era. On Wednesday it was the plan working exactly as drawn. Vesia, Henriquez, Scott and Díaz covered the final 13 outs without allowing a run, and the Dodgers essentially shortened the game to six innings.

This is the template that now dominates October baseball: the starter’s job is no longer to survive seven innings; it is to hand the game to a bullpen with a lead or a tie. Atlanta’s Mahle pitched the old-fashioned gem — 6 1/3 innings of brilliance — and lost, because baseball’s rewards now flow to the deeper bullpen. The Dodgers have invested in that depth for a decade, and it is no coincidence that the club with the deepest bullpen is also the club chasing a three-peat.

Atlanta’s 1-for-23 tells the real story

Postseasons are not lost in a single game; they are lost in a pattern. The Braves’ 1-for-23 mark with runners in scoring position was not bad luck spread evenly across four games — it was a structural failure in situational hitting that followed them from Atlanta’s early lead to the final swing of Game 4.

The Braves won the NL East, and they will spend the winter answering the same question they have faced every October since 2021: why does a club that scores in bunches all summer go silent when the season compresses into single moments? Atlanta has the talent to win in October. What it has not had since 2021 is the timing — and in the playoffs, timing is the whole season.

The three-peat chase is real, and so is the obstacle

No National League club has ever won three consecutive World Series. The Dodgers are now halfway through the October portion of that chase, but the Brewers — baseball’s best regular-season team, with home-field advantage — represent the most credible threat to the dynasty since this run began.

Last year’s four-game sweep of Milwaukee will be cited endlessly, but a year is a long time in baseball, and the Brewers have added reasons to believe. The NLCS starting Sunday is the heavyweight fight the season has been building toward: the best team against the best organization, the present champion against the team with the best record. Whatever happens, the winner of this series will carry real momentum into the World Series.

What to watch next

– Game 1 on Sunday in Milwaukee — rotation choices on both sides, and whether the Brewers’ rested bullpen can handle the Dodgers’ relentless lineup depth.

– Pages’ momentum — four hits in two games after an 0-for-7 start. If he is genuinely hot, the Dodgers’ lineup has no soft spot at all.

– Muncy’s October bat — three postseason homers and counting; the veteran keeps producing when it matters most.

– Ohtani’s two-way October — the sport’s biggest star continues to drive winning plays, from scoring on an error to anchoring the order.