NLCS goes to Game 7
Seager, Buehler shine in 3-1 win as Braves stall in Series bid
Los Angeles strikes early, holds on to beat Atlanta, 3-1, in Game 6.
ARLINGTON, Texas — Corey Seager homered again, Walker Buehler pitched six scoreless innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers pushed the National League Championship Series to Game 7 with a 3-1 win against the Atlanta Braves Saturday night at GlobeLife Field.
The Dodgers avoided elimination for the second time in less than 24 hours, and now have a winner-take-all game to try to get to their third World Series in four years. They haven’t won a championship since 1988.
“I’m still sort of recovering from this one, but already thinking about Game 7,” manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s what you live for.”
Max Fried was the loser, his first this year, for the Braves, who were trying to celebrate manager Brian Snitker’s 65th birthday with the franchise’s first World Series since 1999. But the young left-hander worked into the seventh without allowing another run after LA’s three-run first.
“Shoot, we’ll go out there and let ’er fly. A Game 7 is another baseball game,” Snitker said. “It’s not fourth-and-1 and let me get the first down. It’s a baseball game. You haveto treat it as such.”
Game 7 is Sunday night, with Roberts staying quiet about his starter and the Braves going with rookie right-hander Ian Anderson, who has thrown 15⅔ scorelessinnings in his three postseason starts. The Dodgers could go with Tony Gonsolin or give the ball to Clayton Kersha won short rest.
Justin Turner also homered for the NL West Division champions, and Kenley Jansen threw a six-pitch ninth for his 18th career post-season save.
It was Jansen’s first save chance in five appearances since closing out the Dodgers’ first playoff win this season in the wild-card round.He struck out the side on 12 pitches Friday night in a7-3 win.
“Two huge outings, not only for us, but him personally, you can just see the confidence he has on the mound attacking guys,” Turner said. “That’s the Kenley Jansen I and all of us in there all know and love.”
Fried allowed only two homers in his 11 starts while going 7-0 in the regular season, but the Dodgers went deep twice in three pitches in the first.
Seager, who homered twice Friday night in Game 4, has NLCS records with five homers and 11 RBIs, and still a game to play. His six homers overall are already a Dodgers post season record.
The last batter Fried faced Saturday was Muncy, who struck out for the second out of the seventh. Fried allowed eight hits while striking out fiveand walking four.
Mookie Betts, the 2018 AL MVP and first-year Dodgers player, made a leaping catch against the right-field wall to end the fifth. While it wouldn’t have been a homer, it robbed Marcell Ozuna of extra bases, and the Braves a likely run.
Buehler threw 65 of his 89 pitches for strikes, allowing seven hits while striking out six without a walk. After Atlanta loaded the bases with three singles in a row to start the top of second — the last hit by his Vanderbilt roommate Dansby Swanson — the right-hander really brought the heat, with 10 consecutive fastballs to get outof the jam.
“It’s unbelievable. You just watch his demeanor now with the bases loaded, first strikeout, calm and collected, second strikeout calm and collected, then he gets out of it, and you see the emotion come out of him after the fact,” Turner said. “His mound presence is just unbelievable.”