The Los Angeles Dodgers are going back to the National League Championship Series. Andy Pages broke open a pitchers’ duel with a two-run single in the seventh inning on Wednesday, and Los Angeles beat Atlanta 4-1 on the road to close out the division series three games to one, the Dodgers’ third straight trip to the NLCS.
Pages had two of Los Angeles’ five hits and two of its three RBIs, and his single was the Dodgers’ first hit with runners in scoring position in the entire series, after an 0-for-14 start in those situations. Atlanta’s Tyler Mahle took a tough loss, charged with two runs, one earned, on three hits over 6 1/3 innings in a start good enough to win most nights.
Los Angeles now meets Milwaukee, which eliminated San Diego in four games, in an NLCS rematch beginning Sunday. The Dodgers are attempting to become the first National League team to win three consecutive World Series, a standard that turns a division-series win into a mere formality in their own clubhouse.
The Braves, meanwhile, were one of three home teams eliminated on the same day, a first in postseason history according to coverage of Wednesday’s games. Atlanta’s season, built on pitching depth, ended with its lineup unable to solve Los Angeles’ staff for the second straight October meeting between the clubs.
Two of baseball’s best-run organizations now play seven games, at most, for a pennant. The Dodgers bring the stars and the streak; the Brewers bring the season’s most complete run-prevention outfit and, after Wednesday’s heroics in their own series, no shortage of belief. Sunday cannot come soon enough for either city.
Game 1 of the NLCS is scheduled for Sunday in Milwaukee, with Los Angeles arriving rested and Milwaukee arriving believing. The Dodgers’ path to a third consecutive pennant runs through the one National League club that out-pitched them all summer, and October series between teams that know each other this well usually turn on the least famous player on the field, which is exactly the kind of player Milwaukee keeps producing at exactly the right moment.
US News Zone will continue to follow this story as the season develops.
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