NLDS Game 3 winners and losers: Dodgers slug their way to series lead; Chris Sale good but not good enough

The 2026 Major League Baseball postseason continued on Tuesday with a pair of NLDS Game 3s. 

In the early game, the Atlanta Braves hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers for what figures to be a pivotal game in the best-of-five series. The Braves' win in Game 2 evened the series at 1-1 and gave them home-field advantage the rest of the way. As well, the Braves had ace Chris Sale starting on full rest for Game 3 against Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

In the nightcap, the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres will go at it in Petco Park. With the Brewers up 2-0 in the series after a pair of white-knuckled contests in Milwaukee, the Padres find themselves in an elimination game and tasked with winning three games in a row over the best team in baseball in order to advance to the NLCS. 

Here are the final scores and schedule for Tuesday's crucial action:

• Dodgers 3, Braves 1 (box score); Dodgers up 2-1 in series
• Brewers at Padres, 9:30 p.m. ET (GameTracker); Brewers up 2-0 in series

To sum up all the NLDS Game 3 action, we're here to declare a winner and loser from each of the two Tuesday contests. You can find those declarations just below.

Winner: The Dodgers' power

The team that hits the most home runs had the overwhelming edge in a postseason game – or any game, for that matter – and that was indeed the case on Tuesday. The back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers are no stranger to such a thing. 

During the regular season, the Dodgers ranked second in MLB in slugging and tied for seventh in home runs. They were one of just nine teams in MLB to hit more than 200 homers during the 2026 season. No, hard-hitting DH Shohei Ohtani isn't himself at the plate right now, but the Dodgers are hardly a one-man power attack. This season, L.A. boasted four hitters who tallied at least 20 homers in 2026, seven who had at least 15, and nine who reached double figures in homers. 

In that game-turning top of the fourth of Game 3, Enrique Hernández, Dave Roberts' No. 9 hitter, did this to a 1-0 changeup from Sale with a runner on: 

That was a 2-0 Dodgers lead, and that was the 12th postseason home run of Hernández's Dodgers career. He trails just Max Muncy (18) and Corey Seager and Justin Turner (13) on the franchise's all-time list of career playoff homers. Hernández is now ahead of Duke Snider and Ohtani, who have 11 apiece. 

Two batters later, it was Freeman: 

On a night when Yamamoto was in peak form -- he allowed one run in seven innings with 10 strikeouts and only one walk -- and the bullpen did its job, that was more than enough. 

Loser: Chris Sale, Braves

Game 3 started off on a high note for Sale. Braves manager Walt Weiss was able to avoid using him in Game 2, which meant he was on full rest as he took the bump on Tuesday at Truist Park. He looked in peak form early, as he struck out the side in the first. He did the same in the second inning and thus became just the eighth pitcher in MLB postseason history to have six strikeouts in the first two innings. In the third, he hit 100 mph with his fastball – a ball to Shohei Ohtani. He did get spared some damage thanks to a highlight catch in left field by Mauricio Dubón. 

In the fourth, though, the Dodgers powered up at the expense of Sale and the Braves with a pair of home runs, including just the second by a left-handed batter – this one by former Brave Freddie Freeman – that Sale has allowed in all of 2026. As Inside Edge noted, it was just the second time in his entire career that Sale allowed a homer to a lefty on a fastball. The first was more than a decade ago. 

That uprising staked Sale's opposite number, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to a 3-0 lead. By no means was Sale bad in Game 3 …

But three runs in five innings usually won't get it done against a pitcher like Yamamoto across the way. And indeed it didn't.