Machado boosts Dodgers to NLCS

ATLANTA — When the Los Angeles Dodgers bolstered their already powerpacked lineup with slugging shortstop Manny Machado, this is just what they had in mind.

Plenty of long balls. Another deep run in the postseason.

Next stop, the NL Championship Series for the third year in a row.

Machado drove in four runs — three of them with a seventh-inning shot into the left-field seats — and the Dodgers finished off the Atlanta Braves with a 6-2 victory yesterday in the NL Division Series.

Los Angeles took the best-of-five series 3-1 and advanced to face the Brewers. Game 1 is Friday night in Milwaukee.

Coming off a tense victory in Game 3, the Baby Braves grabbed the lead on pinch-hitter Kurt Suzuki’s two-run single in the fourth.

But David Freese, the 2011 World Series MVP with St. Louis, came through again in the postseason. He delivered a pinch-hit single of his own in the sixth off Jonny Venters (0-1), driving home Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig for a 3-2 lead with a grounder past backup shortstop Charlie Culberson after Atlanta allowed Puig to steal second uncontested.

Machado finished off Atlanta in the seventh, launching a 1-2 pitch from rookie Chad Sobotka over the Dodgers’ bull- pen, his team’s eighth homer of the series. A free-agent-to-be acquired from Baltimore in July, Machado also had a run-scoring double in the first.

Ryan Madson (1-0) earned the win by getting the final two outs in the fifth to escape a basesloaded jam. Lucas Duda hit a long drive to right that drifted foul with two on in the eighth against Kenta Maeda, then had an inningending flyout.

Atlanta’s return to the postseason for the first time since 2013 yielded a fa- miliar result: another postseason defeat.

The Braves have lost nine straight playoff appearances, their last victory coming 17 long years ago against a team that is no longer in the National League. Since a sweep of Houston Astros in the 2001 NL Division Series, October has been a month of misery for the Braves.