Braves Bounce Back: 3 Takeaways From NLDS Game 2 Win Over Dodgers

Sports

On one side was Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young Award winner. On the other was Ray Kerr, a two-time junior college guest.Naturally, it was the latter who left the video game with a 1-0 lead.This is Ray Kerr’s October, and we’re all simply residing in it.

“Ray Kerr is amazing, man,” Weiss stated. “He did it again.”

Kerr learnt he was beginning Sunday’s bullpen video game the early morning of the video game.”I was like, ‘All right, let’s get it,” Kerr stated. “Just another Sunday, right?”It definitely looked that method, the method he calmly dealt with the high-pressure stakes.Considering his journey,

and the will and durability it considered the 32-year-old to get to baseball’s grandest phase, possibly it should not come as a surprise.

Kerr matured in foster care, went to junior college, ended up being academically disqualified, returned home to Reno, Nevada,

operated at 7-Eleven and a theater and figured that may be what the rest of his life appeared like. Then he made his method to another neighborhood college, pitched well, stood out throughout Alaska summertime league, got seen by the Mariners, signed a minor-league offer and worked his method up the expert ladder.

He was coming off a two-year hiatus following Tommy John surgical treatment when he went back to a big-league mound this year for the very first time because 2024. After making 9 regular-season looks for the Braves, he got the ball to begin the choosing Game 3 of the wild-card series and outdueled the Phillies’ Aaron Nola with 3.1 scoreless innings.For his repetition, he was just anticipated to go an inning or 2.

Rather, he outpitched Snell over 2.2 scoreless innings, starting out 4 batters and setting the phase for the Braves’upset.

“That was a huge start, or open, or whatever you call it, in two huge games for us,” catcher Drake Baldwin informed me.

“It says a lot about him.”

Sports 2. Dodgers Rotation May Not Be As Invincible We Thought

If the Dodgers’postseason rotation was expected to be impenetrable, indomitable, unconquerable, Sunday night showed otherwise.

Early last October, Snell appeared like the pitcher the Dodgers spent for, integrating to enable 2 runs with 28 strikeouts and 5 strolls over 21 innings in his very first 3 starts of the 2025 postseason.

That was not the variation of the left-handed pitcher who appeared Sunday in his very first start of the 2026 postseason.

Snell permitted 5 complimentary passes in Game 2 of the NLDS alone, looking rusty after handling a late-season groin injury that restricted him to simply 5 innings of work over the last 2 weeks of the routine season . Doing not have control, it took Snell 90 pitches to labor through

his 3.2 innings. He required 4 pitches or more versus each of the last 10 batters he dealt with and was not able to leave the 4th inning following his 5th and last walk of the day.

“He just was fighting himself with his delivery all game,” Roberts stated. “I think that just, overall, it wasn’t the groin. He just wasn’t sharp tonight.”He did, nevertheless, restrict the Braves to simply one pursue Brock Stewart got in and retired Ronald Acuña Jr. to

tidy up his fourth-inning mess.

Still, it was barely the outing they anticipated out of Snell after he taped a 1.13 ERA in his last 8 starts of the routine season after returning from an elbow treatment.

A bothersome right knee had actually sapped Freddie Freeman’s power in the season’s 2nd half, playing a function in the star initially baseman striking simply one crowning achievement after

the All-Star break and one extra-base hit in all of September.

But he tends to discover a various equipment when the calendar turns to October.

On Sunday, he discovered it.

The male who struck a walk-off grand slam (plus 3 more crowning achievement) in the 2024 World Series and who ended an 18-inning World Series Game 3 marathon versus heaven Jays in 2015 with another walk-off blast made his very first significant mark on the 2026 postseason Sunday with a game-tying solo shot off Grant Holmes in the 4th inning.The blast lastly provided the Dodgers some momentum and a crowd of 50,729 fans, who had actually been silenced by Snell’s unstable efficiency, a factor to get rowdy.But Michael Harris II guaranteed that was short-term.Dodgers reducer Kris Bubic, pitching for simply the 6th time as a Dodger after returning from an elbow injury, was one pitch far from a best 5th inning.

He breezed through the very first 2 batters, then got Harris down 0-2 before the Braves center fielder poked a sweeper well outside the zone the other method.

The ball brought, and brought, and brought, ultimately up and over the outstretched arm of left fielder Teoscar Hernandez, whose circuitous path and stopped working effort to make the play permitted the ball to ricochet off the wall and assisted Harris extend his double into a triple.”I knew I didn’t fully get it,” Harris informed me.”I understood it was slicing far from them. As I got closer to initially, I was sort of obstructed by his body, so I didn’t understand if he captured it or not. I had actually seen it bounce off the wall, and I simply had to keep digging.

Getting to 3rd was substantial, as Bubic then fired a wild pitch to generate the consent run.It was among 3 hits on the day for Harris, who likewise singled and doubled and is leaving his imprint on the 2026 postseason. Harris’ three-run crowning achievement off Nola in Game 3 of the wild-card series assisted send out the Braves to the NLDS.It’s about as star-studded of a pitching match possible for Game 3.The Braves played a harmful video game utilizing Sale to deal with the last 5 batters in Game 3 of the wild-card series, 2 days after he began Game 1. That additional work in between starts suggested he was not available for Games 1 and 2 of the NLDS in Los Angeles, a dangerous proposal in a best-of-five series.”We required to win that series, which was our finest possibility to do it,” said Weiss. “I have absolutely no is sorry for about pitching Chris Sale in that last video game.”

The choice did not return to burn him in Los Angeles, as the Braves still handled to take Game 2 regardless of missing their ace, setting them up perfectly for Sale to pitch in Atlanta in Game 3 on 4 days off because his wild-card relief look and 6 days off considering that his last start.

The Dodgers likewise need to feel great about their possibilities, too, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting his World Series MVP postseason follow-up project.