​LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 03: Teoscar Hernández #37 of the Los Angeles Dodgers bats during Game One of the National League Division Series presented by Booking.com between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, October 3, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images The Braves had a mountain to climb as heavy underdogs against Tarik Skubal and the Death Star Dodgers, with a bullpen game opened by Dylan Dodd on tap. The story of the first couple innings was a horrid strike zone being called by home plate umpire Roberto Ortiz. There was a flurry of challenges and missed calls against both teams, but it was really an embarrassment for MLB on this big of a stage. Dylan Dodd matched Skubal with 3.0 scoreless innings on 4 strikeouts, throwing 46 pitches. That’s a massive performance from Dodd, following in Ray Kerr’s footsteps from Thursday. Skubal continued to cruise through the fourth with a little bit of BABIP luck, while Victor Mederos took over for Atlanta. The Mederos experience did not go well, as he recorded one out before walking Freeman on four pitches and giving up a massive two-run homer to Teoscar Hernandez. He then allowed a bloop single to Tucker before giving way to Smith-Shawver. AJ did well to stabilize things, keeping it at 2-0 going into the sixth inning. Sean Murphy brought one back with a big solo homer off of a 99 MPH Skubal sinker at the top of the zone to lead off the sixth. Sean Murphy gets a run back for the Braves! pic.twitter.com/gnYVw8YD7A— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2026Ha-Seong Kim chipped in with a walk, following Murphy, driving up Skubal’s pitch count and giving them a baserunner for the top of the order. Baldwin and Acuna chopped out, but avoided the double play. Ozzie was able to draw a walk, with Skubal struggling for command a bit. Olson flied out after a decent AB to end the inning, but the Braves now were only down by 1 run and had Skubal’s pitch count up near 100. Unfortunately, AJ allowed a single and two homers to Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy, giving the Dodgers a strong 5-1 lead in the bottom of the sixth and giving Murphy’s homer right back and more. The decision to leave Smith-Shawver in long enough to see Tucker and especially Muncy is definitely a debatable one, given what was a close game coming into the inning. The Braves offense didn’t have anything to offer against the first arm out of the LA bullpen and sent the game on to the bottom of the seventh. Brent Suter got the bottom of the inning, perhaps with an eye towards covering multiple innings in the absence of offense. Suter worked around a Freeman single to get the job done in a scoreless inning, but the Braves were running out of time to show up on offense. The offense instead put up another 1-2-3 frame in the eighth and Suter came back out for another frame and continued to do his job with a scoreless frame. Ronal