Taylor’s homers send NLCS back to Atlanta

LOS ANGELES — Chris Taylor hit three homers and drove in six runs as the Los Angeles Dodgers broke loose at the plate to beat Atlanta 11-2 on Thursday, cutting the Braves’ lead to 3-2 in the best-of-seven NL Championship Series.

AJ Pollock had two home runs and four RBIs for the defending champion Dodgers, who have won seven straight postseason elimination games dating to last season. They also trailed 0-2 and 1-3 against Atlanta in the NLCS last year before rallying to win three straight at a neutral site in Texas.

“We needed to make a statement,“Taylor said. “They put it on us yesterday. We had to respond.”

Game 6 is today back in Atlanta, where the Braves get two more chances to clinch their first trip to the World Series since 1999.

After mustering just four hits during a 9-2 loss in Game 4 that pushed them to the brink of elimination, the desperate Dodgers rapped out eight by the third inning off Max Fried. They finished with 17, a club record for a postseason game, and also equaled a postseason franchise mark with five home runs.

The Dodgers got to Fried with four consecutive hits in the second. Pollock hit a tying homer and Taylor drove the first pitch he saw to left field, putting Los Angeles in front for good, 3-2.

Starting in place of injured Justin Turner at third base, Taylor became the second Dodger with a three-homer game in the postseason. Kike Hernandez also did it in Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS against the Chicago Cubs.

Taylor had an RBI single in the third to make it 4-2. He went deep in the fifth, then again in the seventh, taking Dylan Lee out to left-center before taking a curtain call in the dugout.