Machado, Freese thrive as Dodgers oust Braves
Brewers up next in Los Angeles’ third straight NLCS
ATLANTA — The Los Angeles Dodgers went through all the expected motions after winning a playoff series.
They broke out T-shirts and caps. They posed for pictures in the middle of Suntrust Park. They doused each other with beer in the clubhouse.
Then, just like that, their focus turned to bigger goals ahead.
For a power-packed team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1988, nothing less will do.
“We all know that there’s a lot more work to be done,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after his team finished off the Atlanta Braves with a 6-2 victory Monday in a National League division series.
Manny Machado hit a threerun homer, and David Freese came through again in the postseason to lead the Dodgers into the NL Championship Series for the third year in a row. Los Angeles moved on to face the Brewers after taking out Atlanta 3-1 in the best-of-five series.
Game 1 is Friday in Milwaukee, the Dodgers’ fourth championship series in six seasons.
This is just what the Dodgers had in mind when they bolstered their already power-packed lineup by acquiring Machado, a free agent-to-be, from Baltimore in July.
Machado had only three hits in the series, but two were homers to go along with six RBIS. He got the Dodgers going in Game 4 with a run-scoring double in the first and effectively wrapped up the series with his seventh-inning shot off rookie Chad Sobotka that cleared the Dodgers’ bullpen in left.
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 Freese, the 2011 World Series MVP with St. Louis, countered with a pinch-hit single in the sixth off Brad Brach, driving home Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig for a 3-2 lead.
Ryan Madson earned the win by getting the final two outs in the fifth to escape a bases-loaded jam. The Braves’ final gasp came in the eighth, when Lucas Duda’s drive into the second deck in right drifted foul with two on against Kenta Maeda.
Duda flied out to end the inning, and Atlanta went down quietly in the ninth.
The Braves’ return to the postseason for the first time since 2013 yielded a familiar result.
Atlanta has lost nine straight playoff appearances, their last victory coming 17 years ago against a team that is no longer in the NL. Since a sweep of Houston in a 2001 NLDS, October has been a month of misery for the Braves.