In the sixth inning Wednesday night at Truist Park, with the score tied 1-1 and Atlanta facing elimination, Ozzie Albies drove an Alex Vesia fastball deep to left. Teoscar Hernández crashed into the wall chasing it. The ball hit the top of the fence and stayed in the park. By ESPN's count, it would have been a home run in 29 of 30 big league parks. In Atlanta it was a double, and Albies never got past second.
The Dodgers didn't waste their chance in the seventh. After a Hernández single and two walks, Andy Pages lined a full-count pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle for two runs. Pages broke his left hand in August, and a year ago he went 4-for-51 in the postseason. Max Muncy homered in the ninth, and the Dodgers won 4-1 to take the series three games to one. They head to their third straight NLCS, trying to become the first National League team to win three World Series in a row.
The Braves drew 18 walks in the series, and none of those runners scored. They went 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position. Ronald Acuña Jr. managed two singles all series. "It's frustrating when you know you have that potential and not doing anything with it," he said, through an interpreter and through tears. Walt Weiss put it more plainly: "Their arms just keep coming at you."
Chris Sale, whom this column has followed all month, struck out six through the first two innings of Game 3 on Tuesday, his third outing in eight days. Then Kiké Hernández and Freddie Freeman homered in the fourth, and Atlanta lost 3-1. Before the playoffs I wrote that Atlanta's season might fit in the strip of grass between shortstop and third. It ended up fitting on top of a wall.
Everybody played on those margins Wednesday. In San Diego, with the Brewers up 3-1 in the eighth inning of Game 4, Manny Machado drove a ball 406 feet to center. Garrett Mitchell, shaded toward right-center by the scouting report, drifted to Petco Park's short wall and reached up for it. Statcast said it would have been a homer in 19 of 30 parks, Milwaukee's included. "Two more inches," Machado said, "that ball may have been a homer."
Mitchell had already tripled and scored the go-ahead run, and Milwaukee won the series in four. The win snapped a 12-game postseason road losing streak. The Brewers' last road playoff win had come against Walker Buehler in 2018. Wednesday's Padres starter was Walker Buehler. Neither team ever led by more than two runs in the series. Per Elias, the only other postseason series of three games or more like that was the 1915 World Series.
Now the 103-win Brewers get the team that swept them in last year's NLCS, starting Sunday in Milwaukee. Jacob Misiorowski, who led the majors with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts, is lined up to start. The Dodgers are expected to answer with Tarik Skubal, their trade-deadline prize from Detroit.
At Yankee Stadium the walls favored the visitors. Ryan Vilade's 340-foot homer into the short porch in right would not have been out of any other big league park, the AP noted. In the sixth, Victor Mesa Jr. hit a hanging Max Fried sweeper into the right-field seats for a 4-2 Rays lead. Then Anthony Volpe hit one to left, and a Yankees fan reached over the wall and caught it above Mesa's leaping glove. Replay turned a two-run homer into fan interference and an RBI double, and the Yankees lost 4-3.
Tampa Bay swept the series and gave up five runs in three games, starting with Drew Rasmussen's eight scoreless one-hit innings in Game 1. The Yankees played October without Aaron Judge, out with a strained calf, and their title drought is now 17 seasons, tying their longest since 1923. The Rays open the ALCS at home Monday.
Four of the five teams still alive rank 19th or lower in payroll. By MLB figures obtained by USA Today, the Brewers rank 19th at $143.5 million, the Rays 25th at $98.3 million, the White Sox 26th at $98 million and the Guardians 30th at $74.2 million. The Yankees rank third at $304.6 million. The Rays, White Sox and Guardians combined cost less than the Dodgers' $338 million.
The owners want a salary cap, arguing that payroll disparity "leaves too many fans without hope." The labor agreement expires Dec. 1, and MLB has already sent teams a memo laying out lockout procedures. Both sides can find evidence in this October. The underdogs make the union's case. The Dodgers, with "eight more wins to go," as Edwin Díaz put it, make the owners'.
Speaking of hope, the White Sox lost 121 games in 2024 and became the first team to reach the postseason after three straight 100-loss seasons. They won their first four playoff games, all on the road. On Wednesday, at their first home playoff game since 2021, a crowd of 40,590 dressed in black watched Cleveland win 9-3. Jo Adell cleared the bases with a triple, José Ramírez added a two-run triple, and seven Guardians pitchers struck out 19, a postseason record for a nine-inning game.
Chicago still leads 2-1. Game 4 is tonight at 8 p.m. ET on TBS and truTV, with Parker Messick starting for Cleveland and Hagen Smith opening for Chicago. If the Guardians win, Game 5 is Saturday at 8 p.m. ET in Cleveland.
Elsewhere, Alex Cora told the Phillies he plans to sit out 2027, USA Today's Bob Nightengale reported, and the Phillies haven't said whether interim manager Don Mattingly returns.
Ten days ago the question in Atlanta was where the ground balls would go. This week it was how high the walls were. Tonight on the South Side, a franchise that hasn't clinched a postseason series at home since 1906 gets another chance to learn which side of the fence it's on.