Braves' 5-1 Edge on the Dodgers Shows No Clear Weakness to Exploit
Atlanta beat Los Angeles five times in six games, but the edge came from a cold Dodgers offense and pitchers who are now injured. Run prevention, the running game and late innings show no repeatable pattern, and DataBaller's ratings favor the Dodgers going into the postseason series.
Published: · Figures as of October 3, 2026
Asked: Atlanta won five of six against the Dodgers this season. Did the Braves find a real weakness they can exploit again?
Atlanta's 5-1 against the Dodgers shows no clear weakness
The record holds: the Braves went 5-1 in the regular season and outscored Los Angeles 26 to 15. The edge came from a cold Dodgers offense and Atlanta run prevention, and some of the arms behind it are on the injury report. The two teams meet again in the postseason series that opens today.
| Game date | Braves (runs) | Dodgers (runs) |
|---|---|---|
| 5/8 | 1 | 3 |
| 5/9 | 7 | 2 |
| 5/10 | 7 | 2 |
| 8/25 | 4 | 3 |
| 8/26 | 6 | 5 |
| 8/27 | 1 | 0 |
- Series moves to Atlanta at 8/25
The Braves' offense was ordinary; the Dodgers' was not
Atlanta scored 4.33 runs a game against Los Angeles, below its 4.58 season rate, so the lineup found nothing special. Los Angeles scored 2.50 a game against a 4.94 season rate. Three of the five wins were by one run (4-3, 6-5, 1-0), and the other two were 7-2. Over 194 at-bats, a drop from .257 to .196 is within what a six-game sample can produce.
| Braves vs LAD | Braves season | Dodgers vs ATL | Dodgers season | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs per game | 4.33 | 4.58 | 2.50 | 4.94 |
| Batting average | .278 | .246 | .196 | .257 |
Shohei Ohtani went 5-for-26 with 8 strikeouts against Atlanta, and Mookie Betts went 4-for-12. The Braves' damage came from a few lineup spots: Drake Baldwin was 8-for-22 with 2 homers and 5 walks, and Matt Olson hit 2 homers.
Atlanta's best pitching against Los Angeles came partly from arms now on the injury report
Spencer Strider threw 6 scoreless innings on May 9 and Bryce Elder 5⅔ scoreless on May 10. Strider is listed with a February 1, 2027 return, and Elder with an October 11 return, a day after the series' last scheduled game. Chris Sale is not on the report and is the repeatable piece: 7 innings with 3 runs allowed on May 8, then a 9-inning shutout with 11 strikeouts on August 27.
The Dodgers' hardest-hit starters were Justin Wrobleski (7 earned runs in 8⅔ innings), Blake Snell (4 earned in 3) and Roki Sasaki (4 earned in 3⅓). Tarik Skubal and Ohtani did not start against Atlanta. Skubal's last regular-season start, on September 25, was 7 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts.
The running game and late innings do not show a pattern
Atlanta stole 9 bases in the six games, against 76 over its 162 regular-season games. The Dodgers allowed 0.66 steals a game against a league rate of 0.66, 16th of 30 teams, so this is not a Dodgers hole. Caught-stealing records are incomplete for these games.
Tanner Scott took the loss in two of the three August games, one earned run each. Over the season he has a 2.69 ERA across 63⅔ innings, so two short outings do not make a bullpen flaw.
The ratings favor Los Angeles
DataBaller's Power Rating, as of October 3, is 1.59 for the Dodgers and 0.55 for the Braves. On its run indexes, Los Angeles is better at both creating runs (12.82 to 11.72) and preventing them (9.69 to 10.56, lower being better). For today's game at Dodger Stadium, it gives the Dodgers 64.0%, a 1.36-run expected margin. The books' devigged home probabilities run from 65.0% to 66.4%. Both teams' records match their scoring margins: the Braves' 94 wins against 93.5 implied, the Dodgers' 100 against 101.9.
Confidence: Medium. Six games is a small sample and pitch-level tracking is not held. The Braves' announced rotation or a Dodgers start by Wrobleski or Sasaki would change the read.