Post by Commissioner Erick on Apr 4, 2021 17:29:06 GMT -5
Los Angeles Dodgers (94-68) @ Atlanta Braves (98-64)
Both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves find themselves in uncharted territory when they face off for the 2025 NL Wild Card Game. The Los Angeles Dodgers are a past World Series winner, the defending NL champion, and a seven-time playoff team. However, all of their playoff berths have come as a result of winning the National League West. This time, they’ll have to try to make it back to the World Series as a Wild Card, a situation they’ve never found themselves in.
They’ll take on an Atlanta Braves who have had a solid past few seasons, but have never found themselves in the playoffs. A number of teams have won World Series the past few years without playoff experience, so Atlanta will look to ride that blueprint to a championship.
Braves Offense versus Dodgers Pitching
The Dodgers were gutted this season with both of their elite frontline pitchers suffering brutal injuries. Both Corey Kluber and Eduardo Rodriguez are players who can tame the best offenses, but both will watch the playoffs from the sideline.
J.B. Bukauskas will get the start for the Dodgers in this game and he’s been a reliable arm for the club these past few years, going 27-12 with 4.4 WAR in 2024 and 2025. Bukauskas has live stuff and can miss bats with a mid-90s fastball he throws up in the zone, a sharp slider, and a great changeup. However, Bukauskas will work up in the zone and trust his stuff in the middle of the zone, and as a result, he’ll give up a bunch of deep fly balls. The ones that land in the park tend to be hauled in by a terrific defensive outfield, but Bukauskas will give up some homers as a result of his style of pitching.
Defensively, Jeren Kendall remains the gold standard of Center Field defense and led the league in Center Field zone rating. Only Albert Almora of the Diamondbacks was in the same league as Kendall defensively. Alex Verdugo is good in Left Field, and Nomar Mazara is serviceable in right, allowing the Dodgers to turn doubles into outs. Their infield defense is more suspect thanks to Luis Urias’ terrible defense. He had a -11.7 zone rating, with Willie Calhoun putting up a -5.5 mark. Left-handed hitters tended to pull a lot of singles this year. Valdez and Bregman were fine on the left side.
The Dodgers’ pen isn’t as good as it was in prior years. Kenley Jansen was terrific down the stretch, but a severe velocity drop makes him far more hittable to where he’s not trusted in crucial situations. Penguin Robles has emerged as the next version of Robles, a cutter/slider righty who throws in the mid-90s, though Robles’ ball isn’t quite as heavy as Jansen’s was. Robles has taken over as a reliable closer, and Dave Robertson is still an ageless wonder as a setup man, but the depth to the bullpen isn’t there.
Both Eric Groves and Clayton Kershaw are left-handers who are tremendous against lefties and whom righties don’t hit for a high average against. However, right-handers can take them deep making them questionable options if they don’t have platoon advantages.
Osiris Ramirez is a strikeout artist, but after years of not allowing home runs, he surrendered 18 in 81.2 innings. Sponge Bob soaked up strikeouts and prevented homers, but was incredibly wild, making him a high-risk, high-reward option. Rebel Ceja was hit hard in his rookie debut, and doesn’t not appear to be ready for primetime. This makes LA’s middle-inning options highly concerning.
Atlanta may be the right team to take advantage of LA’s specific pitching options in this game. The Braves don’t have an exceptionally prolific offense as they were only seventh in runs. But they did finish fifth in homers. They’re not a club built to bang out four hits in an inning, or to steal runs with speed. They’ll hit balls over the fence to generate offense. That’s bad news against a staff that gave up the sixth most homers in the league.
Atlanta was towards the bottom in batting average on balls in play, and struck out a good amount, so this contest may be about how many solo home runs Atlanta can crank out. Seven hitters cranked at least 25 homers for the Braves, but only six will play today as Raul Mondesi is out with a broken elbow. 49-home-run hitter Jimmy McCabe has a bruised thumb that will affect him as well. Luis Ramirez will likely get the start at Second Base, and is nowhere near the power hitter Mondesi is.
However, Atlanta will still have six hitters who are left-handed and have at least 18 home runs. If those six can get to Bukauskas, the game will likely be Atlanta’s. If Bukasukas can blow those lefties away with his stuff, they can avoid their right-handed long men and middle relievers, and rely on their lefties, Robertson, and Robles.
Off the bench, Rodeo Barton is Atlanta’s best righty hitter. He doesn’t have much power, but he has a good eye and can find the gaps. Lefty Luis Mieses can occasionally run into a homer, while Joerlin de los Santos is an elite defender and base-stealer. Rookie Tony Sierra is a combination of the two as he has good speed and can occasionally run into a homer, but is a bit too young to be reliable at this point of his career.
Dodgers Offense versus Braves Pitching
Los Angeles is in a way a mirrored version of Atlanta. Both have a similar offensive rank, but the Dodgers profile is flipped, generating runs with a good average and an ability to get on base, and middling power.
This isn’t to say the Dodgers don’t have power—five hitters had at least 26 home runs, and four hitters drove in at least 97—but the Dodgers were seventh in home runs and second in average and on-base percentage.
Nomar Mazara and Willie Calhoun are the hitters who can do both. Each hit at least .283 with 46+ homers and 137+ RBIs. The duo is extremely dangerous. Alex Bregman has hit over .300 in eight of his nine seasons, as is a perfect player to bat ahead of the two run producers. Amin Valdez has been a fantastic table-setter, hitting a tick under .300 with 20 homers and 23 steals. The top of the lineup is well-optimized, especially after Valdez was moved to the leadoff spot.
The rest of the lineup is more inconsistent than previous Dodgers’ lineups. Seiya Suzuki is still a big masher in the five-spot, but Alex Verdugo had his worst season since his rookie year, albeit in a year filled with a shoulder injury and a wife who wanted to leave Los Angeles.
Jeren Kendall continues to be an erratic offensive player, with good power and terrible contact rates, and Luis Urias continues to be a disappointment by Dodgers standards. He still gets on base and has a .375 OBP, but he only has eight homers, three steals, and plays terrible defense. Keibert Ruiz provided a decent .349 on-base percentage at the bottom of the lineup.
The fact that the Dodgers are more geared towards getting on base gives them a chance against Marc Eberle. The fantastic knuckleballer led the league with a 2.38 ERA, and allowed a league-leading 0.6 home runs-per-nine innings. Eberle only issued 15 long balls and worked 215.2 innings, including seven Complete Games.
Eberle seldom walks hitters, but he really does not allow balls to go over the fence. The Dodgers are more geared than most teams to play station-to-station offense though. Whether or not guys like Suzuki and Verdugo can cash in the runners who will likely be on base ahead of them will be a fun subplot to follow. Los Angeles faced Eberle once this year and got three runs in 6 innings off Eberle without a homer, with ground ball hits, a few line drives, and a stolen base accounting for the runs.
That means defense will have to be paramount for Atlanta. The Mondesi injury actually plays into that, as Atlanta can put Slayer Ramirez and Ronny Mauricio together and have a terrific middle infield defense. Atlanta doesn’t have a great defense otherwise, so where Los Angeles hits the ball may be important.
The Braves have one of the best bullpens in the league, with three left-handers making the team well-prepared to face Los Angeles’ gauntlet of lefties. Joe Martin had a 2.57 ERA, Adam Liberatore had a 3.52 mark but struck out 90 hitters in 61.1, and Trevor Rogers saved 39 games and had 3.7 WAR. Atlanta simply has an elite pen for dealing with lefties, and they should all see play today if they need it.
Hunter Ruth had his moments as a swingman, but is a little bit homer prone and did not have success against lefties. If he sees play, ideally it would be the righty-heavy portion of the Dodgers lineup from Urias wrapping around up to Bregman.
Jorge Morales struck out everyone, but while righties couldn’t touch him, some lefties were able to take him deep. This may not be the matchup for him. Jeurys Familia is a veteran without any platoon splits, but the left-handed options for Atlanta may be better. Familia has excellent career postseason numbers stemming from his World Series run back in 2017.
Los Angeles’ bench is filled with defensive options. If they take a lead, their defenders can help salt the game away, but it will be up to the starting lineup to carry the team to a win.
Season Series
The two teams split the season series, with each club winning two of three at home and needing extra innings to do so.
In early June, the Dodgers needed a bullpen day, getting 9 bullpen innings to shutout Atlanta on four hits and two walks. Willie Calhoun homered twice and Fidel Mejia hit a grand slam for his only career homer. Atlanta righted the ship the next day with a seven homer game, including three off Bukauskas in a 10-4 win. The Dodgers got 4.2 shutout innings in the finale from their bullpen, allowing Luis Urias to crack a three-run walkoff homer in the 10th to give LA the series.
About a week later, Atlanta got an eighth inning Zach Collins homer off David Robertson, a Mikey Polansky walkoff homer off Ismael Robles, and a 6-5 win in 11 innings. The next day, Atlanta got 4 scoreless from the bullpen to help grab a 4-1 win. The Dodgers salvaged a win in the finale with Clayton Kershaw and Eric Groves combining for 2.1 scoreless in relief for a 5-2 Dodgers win.
Key Questions
Each team has some sensational defensive players propping up some pretty poor defenses. Will either defense be a liability?
Can the Dodgers string together enough hits in a row to generate offense, or will there be a lot of guys stranded at second base?
Will J.B. Bukauskas be able to strike out enough Braves that they aren’t given a chance to make contact to hit a ball over the fence?
Prediction:
The Dodgers approach makes them better adapted to Eberle than most teams, and a couple of solo home runs allowed shouldn’t be enough to damn them. However, Urias and Calhoun will make sure those couple of home runs are two-run home runs. Braves 5 – Dodgers 3.
Both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves find themselves in uncharted territory when they face off for the 2025 NL Wild Card Game. The Los Angeles Dodgers are a past World Series winner, the defending NL champion, and a seven-time playoff team. However, all of their playoff berths have come as a result of winning the National League West. This time, they’ll have to try to make it back to the World Series as a Wild Card, a situation they’ve never found themselves in.
They’ll take on an Atlanta Braves who have had a solid past few seasons, but have never found themselves in the playoffs. A number of teams have won World Series the past few years without playoff experience, so Atlanta will look to ride that blueprint to a championship.
Braves Offense versus Dodgers Pitching
The Dodgers were gutted this season with both of their elite frontline pitchers suffering brutal injuries. Both Corey Kluber and Eduardo Rodriguez are players who can tame the best offenses, but both will watch the playoffs from the sideline.
J.B. Bukauskas will get the start for the Dodgers in this game and he’s been a reliable arm for the club these past few years, going 27-12 with 4.4 WAR in 2024 and 2025. Bukauskas has live stuff and can miss bats with a mid-90s fastball he throws up in the zone, a sharp slider, and a great changeup. However, Bukauskas will work up in the zone and trust his stuff in the middle of the zone, and as a result, he’ll give up a bunch of deep fly balls. The ones that land in the park tend to be hauled in by a terrific defensive outfield, but Bukauskas will give up some homers as a result of his style of pitching.
Defensively, Jeren Kendall remains the gold standard of Center Field defense and led the league in Center Field zone rating. Only Albert Almora of the Diamondbacks was in the same league as Kendall defensively. Alex Verdugo is good in Left Field, and Nomar Mazara is serviceable in right, allowing the Dodgers to turn doubles into outs. Their infield defense is more suspect thanks to Luis Urias’ terrible defense. He had a -11.7 zone rating, with Willie Calhoun putting up a -5.5 mark. Left-handed hitters tended to pull a lot of singles this year. Valdez and Bregman were fine on the left side.
The Dodgers’ pen isn’t as good as it was in prior years. Kenley Jansen was terrific down the stretch, but a severe velocity drop makes him far more hittable to where he’s not trusted in crucial situations. Penguin Robles has emerged as the next version of Robles, a cutter/slider righty who throws in the mid-90s, though Robles’ ball isn’t quite as heavy as Jansen’s was. Robles has taken over as a reliable closer, and Dave Robertson is still an ageless wonder as a setup man, but the depth to the bullpen isn’t there.
Both Eric Groves and Clayton Kershaw are left-handers who are tremendous against lefties and whom righties don’t hit for a high average against. However, right-handers can take them deep making them questionable options if they don’t have platoon advantages.
Osiris Ramirez is a strikeout artist, but after years of not allowing home runs, he surrendered 18 in 81.2 innings. Sponge Bob soaked up strikeouts and prevented homers, but was incredibly wild, making him a high-risk, high-reward option. Rebel Ceja was hit hard in his rookie debut, and doesn’t not appear to be ready for primetime. This makes LA’s middle-inning options highly concerning.
Atlanta may be the right team to take advantage of LA’s specific pitching options in this game. The Braves don’t have an exceptionally prolific offense as they were only seventh in runs. But they did finish fifth in homers. They’re not a club built to bang out four hits in an inning, or to steal runs with speed. They’ll hit balls over the fence to generate offense. That’s bad news against a staff that gave up the sixth most homers in the league.
Atlanta was towards the bottom in batting average on balls in play, and struck out a good amount, so this contest may be about how many solo home runs Atlanta can crank out. Seven hitters cranked at least 25 homers for the Braves, but only six will play today as Raul Mondesi is out with a broken elbow. 49-home-run hitter Jimmy McCabe has a bruised thumb that will affect him as well. Luis Ramirez will likely get the start at Second Base, and is nowhere near the power hitter Mondesi is.
However, Atlanta will still have six hitters who are left-handed and have at least 18 home runs. If those six can get to Bukauskas, the game will likely be Atlanta’s. If Bukasukas can blow those lefties away with his stuff, they can avoid their right-handed long men and middle relievers, and rely on their lefties, Robertson, and Robles.
Off the bench, Rodeo Barton is Atlanta’s best righty hitter. He doesn’t have much power, but he has a good eye and can find the gaps. Lefty Luis Mieses can occasionally run into a homer, while Joerlin de los Santos is an elite defender and base-stealer. Rookie Tony Sierra is a combination of the two as he has good speed and can occasionally run into a homer, but is a bit too young to be reliable at this point of his career.
Dodgers Offense versus Braves Pitching
Los Angeles is in a way a mirrored version of Atlanta. Both have a similar offensive rank, but the Dodgers profile is flipped, generating runs with a good average and an ability to get on base, and middling power.
This isn’t to say the Dodgers don’t have power—five hitters had at least 26 home runs, and four hitters drove in at least 97—but the Dodgers were seventh in home runs and second in average and on-base percentage.
Nomar Mazara and Willie Calhoun are the hitters who can do both. Each hit at least .283 with 46+ homers and 137+ RBIs. The duo is extremely dangerous. Alex Bregman has hit over .300 in eight of his nine seasons, as is a perfect player to bat ahead of the two run producers. Amin Valdez has been a fantastic table-setter, hitting a tick under .300 with 20 homers and 23 steals. The top of the lineup is well-optimized, especially after Valdez was moved to the leadoff spot.
The rest of the lineup is more inconsistent than previous Dodgers’ lineups. Seiya Suzuki is still a big masher in the five-spot, but Alex Verdugo had his worst season since his rookie year, albeit in a year filled with a shoulder injury and a wife who wanted to leave Los Angeles.
Jeren Kendall continues to be an erratic offensive player, with good power and terrible contact rates, and Luis Urias continues to be a disappointment by Dodgers standards. He still gets on base and has a .375 OBP, but he only has eight homers, three steals, and plays terrible defense. Keibert Ruiz provided a decent .349 on-base percentage at the bottom of the lineup.
The fact that the Dodgers are more geared towards getting on base gives them a chance against Marc Eberle. The fantastic knuckleballer led the league with a 2.38 ERA, and allowed a league-leading 0.6 home runs-per-nine innings. Eberle only issued 15 long balls and worked 215.2 innings, including seven Complete Games.
Eberle seldom walks hitters, but he really does not allow balls to go over the fence. The Dodgers are more geared than most teams to play station-to-station offense though. Whether or not guys like Suzuki and Verdugo can cash in the runners who will likely be on base ahead of them will be a fun subplot to follow. Los Angeles faced Eberle once this year and got three runs in 6 innings off Eberle without a homer, with ground ball hits, a few line drives, and a stolen base accounting for the runs.
That means defense will have to be paramount for Atlanta. The Mondesi injury actually plays into that, as Atlanta can put Slayer Ramirez and Ronny Mauricio together and have a terrific middle infield defense. Atlanta doesn’t have a great defense otherwise, so where Los Angeles hits the ball may be important.
The Braves have one of the best bullpens in the league, with three left-handers making the team well-prepared to face Los Angeles’ gauntlet of lefties. Joe Martin had a 2.57 ERA, Adam Liberatore had a 3.52 mark but struck out 90 hitters in 61.1, and Trevor Rogers saved 39 games and had 3.7 WAR. Atlanta simply has an elite pen for dealing with lefties, and they should all see play today if they need it.
Hunter Ruth had his moments as a swingman, but is a little bit homer prone and did not have success against lefties. If he sees play, ideally it would be the righty-heavy portion of the Dodgers lineup from Urias wrapping around up to Bregman.
Jorge Morales struck out everyone, but while righties couldn’t touch him, some lefties were able to take him deep. This may not be the matchup for him. Jeurys Familia is a veteran without any platoon splits, but the left-handed options for Atlanta may be better. Familia has excellent career postseason numbers stemming from his World Series run back in 2017.
Los Angeles’ bench is filled with defensive options. If they take a lead, their defenders can help salt the game away, but it will be up to the starting lineup to carry the team to a win.
Season Series
The two teams split the season series, with each club winning two of three at home and needing extra innings to do so.
In early June, the Dodgers needed a bullpen day, getting 9 bullpen innings to shutout Atlanta on four hits and two walks. Willie Calhoun homered twice and Fidel Mejia hit a grand slam for his only career homer. Atlanta righted the ship the next day with a seven homer game, including three off Bukauskas in a 10-4 win. The Dodgers got 4.2 shutout innings in the finale from their bullpen, allowing Luis Urias to crack a three-run walkoff homer in the 10th to give LA the series.
About a week later, Atlanta got an eighth inning Zach Collins homer off David Robertson, a Mikey Polansky walkoff homer off Ismael Robles, and a 6-5 win in 11 innings. The next day, Atlanta got 4 scoreless from the bullpen to help grab a 4-1 win. The Dodgers salvaged a win in the finale with Clayton Kershaw and Eric Groves combining for 2.1 scoreless in relief for a 5-2 Dodgers win.
Key Questions
Each team has some sensational defensive players propping up some pretty poor defenses. Will either defense be a liability?
Can the Dodgers string together enough hits in a row to generate offense, or will there be a lot of guys stranded at second base?
Will J.B. Bukauskas be able to strike out enough Braves that they aren’t given a chance to make contact to hit a ball over the fence?
Prediction:
The Dodgers approach makes them better adapted to Eberle than most teams, and a couple of solo home runs allowed shouldn’t be enough to damn them. However, Urias and Calhoun will make sure those couple of home runs are two-run home runs. Braves 5 – Dodgers 3.