Dodgers 5, Braves 3: Skubal, Three Homers, and 100 Degrees

100 degrees at first pitch. Skubal tried to match it.

October 3, 2026 - Los Angeles - The board at Dodger Stadium read 100 degrees when Tarik Skubal threw the first pitch. He told MLB.com he was trying to match the temperature. He threw a 101.1 mph fastball to Austin Riley in the fourth, the hardest pitch of his season, and he struck out seven in six innings. The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 5-3 in National League Division Series Game 1 and lead the series 1-0.

Sunny. Wind 2 mph, varying. First pitch 1:08 p.m. PT. Attendance 50,194. The game lasted 2 hours, 44 minutes. ESPN's recap said the game-time temperature fell just short of the Dodger Stadium record of 103 from Game 1 of the 2017 World Series. The feels-like number was 105. Umpires drank water between innings. Fans used giveaway towels as hats.

"I think I was just trying to match the temperature out there," Skubal said, per MLB.com. "It was a hot one."

Fifteen in a row, then Murphy, then the homers answered.

Dylan Dodd opened for Atlanta and threw three scoreless: two hits, no walks, four strikeouts, 47 pitches. Drake Baldwin singled to lead off against Skubal. Then Skubal retired 15 in a row. Seven of those 15 were strikeouts. Will Smith told MLB.com Skubal was changing speeds and keeping hitters off balance.

Victor Mederos took over in the fourth and lasted a third of an inning. Freddie Freeman reached. Teoscar Hernández homered to left-center. 2-0. Mederos is 0-1. That was the first swing that made the heat feel like a Dodgers afternoon.

Sean Murphy led off the sixth with a homer to center, 421 feet, two-strike, per ESPN. 2-1. Skubal walked Ha-Seong Kim, lived through two fielder's choices, walked Ozzie Albies, and got Matt Olson to fly out with two on. He called that the inning that mattered. One run. He was done after 94 pitches: two hits, one earned, two walks, seven strikeouts, the win, 1-0.

AJ Smith-Shawver then watched the lead disappear. Hernández was on when Kyle Tucker homered to right. 4-1. Max Muncy homered to right on the next swing that counted. 5-1. Three Los Angeles homers. Five runs. Atlanta's rotation had already been chewed up by the Phillies series. Saturday it needed the bullpen to hold a one-run game. The bullpen did not.

Albies in the ninth. Phillips for the last out.

Brock Stewart threw a clean seventh. Alex Vesia threw a clean eighth. Tanner Scott started the ninth and allowed Ronald Acuña Jr. to reach. Albies homered to center. 5-3. Evan Phillips walked a batter and finished the save. Scott's line: two-thirds of an inning, two hits, two earned, one homer. The save still belonged to Phillips.

Hernández went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBI. Tucker went 2-for-4 with a steal, a run, and two RBI. Muncy went 1-for-4 with the third homer. Freeman went 1-for-3 with a walk and the run Hernández drove in. Mookie Betts went 1-for-3 with a walk. Shohei Ohtani went 1-for-4. Andy Pages struck out three times.

Albies finished 1-for-3 with a walk and the two-run shot that made the ninth loud. Murphy went 1-for-3 with the homer that cut it to 2-1. Riley struck out twice against Skubal and went 0-for-4. Olson did not get a hit. Atlanta had four hits. Two of them left the yard. That was the whole scoring column.

"The fire that he has in him, it was fun to see," Muncy said of Skubal, per MLB.com.

Snell on Sunday. Atlanta has to answer in the same heat.

Dave Roberts told MLB.com Blake Snell follows Skubal in Game 2 on Sunday, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto lined up for Game 3 in Atlanta. ESPN's recap said an extreme heat warning remains in effect for Sunday evening. Skubal, an Arizona product, told MLB.com he had pitched in 127-degree weather in Lake Havasu as a kid. Saturday was still hot. He still went six.

Atlanta used Dodd as an opener after the Wild Card Series scrambled the rotation. He did his job. Mederos and Smith-Shawver did not survive the homers. That is the 5-3. Los Angeles has the 1-0 lead that, in this 2-2-1 format, has meant a series win 42 of 56 times, the MLB recap noted. One game does not finish a series. It does set the temperature for Sunday.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Los Angeles at 10 team fantasy points on a 5-3. Skubal had 21 pitching FP. Tucker and Albies had 8 hitting FP each. Atlanta sat at 0. Those numbers are the homers and the six innings: a win, five runs, three against, and a left-hander who left with the lead.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: MLB.com schedule; MLB Gameday wrap; ESPN scoreboard; ESPN box score; ESPN recap; AthX Engine scoring applied to verified box stats. Information only; not financial advice.*