The Braves’ season is hanging by a thread, and now Tyler Mahle gets the ball with everything on the line.
Atlanta had a chance Tuesday night to grab a 2-1 lead in the NLDS and do it in front of a sold-out crowd, but Yoshinobu Yamamoto shut that door. In a rematch of an August pitching showcase, the Braves were held down and couldn’t dig out from the three runs allowed by Chris Sale, who gave up a pair of home runs. For all the noise around Atlanta’s pitching, the bigger issue in Game 3 was the offense that never came through.
That’s been a familiar frustration for Sale all season, and it stung even more in a game like this. “Let It Fly” sounds a lot better when your own bats are the ones backing it up, and the Braves have reached the point where the slogan needs the lineup to match it.
The team had a golden chance to close things out at home. Instead, it’s back to survival mode for the second time this postseason.
Mahle will try to keep that from turning into the end of the road. He was sharp in his playoff debut for Atlanta, throwing seven innings of one-run ball against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the Wild Card series.
He allowed six hits, with three of them coming in the first inning when the lone run scored, then settled in to walk one and strike out six across 95 pitches. The outing came with extra weight after Walt Weiss revealed Mahle had felt an abdominal pull before the start, though Weiss and Mahle have since said it won’t be an issue for this game.
Mahle has also already handled the Dodgers once this year. Back in April, when he was with the San Francisco Giants, he blanked Los Angeles over seven innings, striking out five while allowing three hits and two walks in a duel with Shohei Ohtani.
Kiké Hernández, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith have had the most success against him, with each carrying an OPS above 1.000. Freeman and Smith have both homered off him.
Max Muncy is 6-for-19 with a double, good for a .316 average and .778 OPS. The rest of the Dodgers have dragged the team line down to .208/.280/.300.
Los Angeles is sending Tyler Glasnow to the mound. Glasnow owns a 2-6 postseason record with a 4.43 ERA, though he posted a 5-2 mark and a 3.53 ERA in 13 regular-season games.
He missed time on the injured list with low back spasms. His most recent start against Atlanta came in August, when he allowed three runs on five hits over five innings and struck out seven.
The Braves have seen plenty of Glasnow, too. Rowdy Tellez has the most at-bats against him on the roster and is 5-for-19 with two doubles and two home runs.
Sean Murphy is the only other Brave with a homer off Glasnow, and that accounts for his one hit in four at-bats. Every Brave has at least one hit except Ha-Seong Kim and Lane Thomas, but in fewer than 15 plate appearances, the group has produced a team slash line of .182/.243/.303.
Atlanta has already run into a brutal stretch of starting pitching, and Yamamoto’s performance Tuesday only made that clearer. Still, the assignment is simple: the Braves have to hit.
If they can get to Glasnow early and keep the pressure on, they’ll force one more game. If not, the champagne stays on ice in their own park.
In Other News...
Braves Season Ended With The Breakdown Fans Feared Most
For much of October, the Braves were chasing a version of themselves that looked closer to the club fans expected all season, but Game 4 against the Dodgers ended with the kind of unraveling that has lingered over too many recent postseason exits. Los Angeles beat Atlanta 4-1 to close out the NLDS, and the game tilted toward the Dodgers as they took advantage of defensive mistakes and came through with the kind of timely hits that separate a tense playoff night from a breakthrough.
Michael Harris II provided the lone notable spark on offense, but it was never enough to force the Dodgers into real trouble. Instead, Atlanta watched a familiar script play out, with the offense unable to build on small openings and the margin for error shrinking until it disappeared. The Dodgers move on to the NLCS, while the Braves are left with another October that ended the way their fans feared most. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Face A Bigger Question Than Another Early Playoff Exit
The Braves October ended the same way too many recent runs have, with another loss to the Dodgers and another quick exit from the postseason. This one stings differently, though, because Atlanta did take a real step forward under first-year manager Walt Weiss, winning the National League East and piling up 94 regular-season wins after a down year the season before.
Still, the bigger question hanging over the winter is not just why the Braves could not get past Los Angeles again. It is whether the core that has driven this era can keep doing it at the level Atlanta needs, with concerns swirling around the recent performance trends of Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acua Jr. and Sean Murphy. There is enough young talent in the pipeline to keep hope alive, but the Braves have reached the point where promise has to translate into something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]
Tyler Mahle Just Made The Braves' Offseason Much More Interesting
Tyler Mahles brief run with Atlanta in the 2026 NLDS against the Dodgers gave the Braves another arm they could trust in October, and it also gave the front office something to think about once the offseason arrived. Mahle said he enjoyed his time with the club and made clear he would be open to coming back if the chance comes together, which is exactly the kind of comment a team pays attention to after a postseason series.
The challenge for Atlanta is that this one may not be simple to line up quickly. Mahle is expected to draw interest from multiple teams in a shallow free-agent market, and while there is obvious mutual interest in keeping the door open, no agreement is in place yet. For a Braves club always trying to balance upside, timing and cost on the pitching side, that leaves Mahle as one of the more intriguing names to watch this winter. [Read more 🡒]