A four-run lead in the ninth inning of a playoff game is supposed to be boring. It's supposed to be the part where you start thinking about dinner. Instead, Tanner Scott turned a laugher into a crisis, and Dodger Stadium spent the final outs of a series-opening win doing math it shouldn't have had to do.
Tarik Skubal was dominant for six innings in brutal heat, Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker each hit two-run homers, Max Muncy added a solo shot, and the Dodgers beat the Braves 5-3 to take Game 1 of the NLDS. By the sixth inning it was 5-1, game over. Then Scott took the mound for the ninth, gave up a leadoff single to Ronald Acuña Jr., and served up a 432-foot homer to Ozzie Albies that cut the margin to 5-3. A laugher became a two-run game on back-to-back batters, against the pitcher Dave Roberts trusts to finish games.
Scott got two outs after that, barely keeping this from turning into a disaster. Roberts still didn't trust him to finish it. Evan Phillips came in, walked a batter, put the tying run at the plate in Austin Riley, and then got the groundout that actually ended the game. Phillips is the guy who closed the door after Scott kicked it open. The closer put the series-opening game in jeopardy, and someone else had to clean it up.
The right reaction sits somewhere between panic and denial. A win is a win, and the Dodgers are 1-0 in a best-of-five with their ace on the mound and a lineup capable of putting crooked numbers on the board. One shaky inning in one game is just one shaky inning. Bullpens are streaky. Guys have bad nights. Nobody's saying Scott should be run out of Los Angeles over one blown four-run cushion.
But pretending this was nothing is its own kind of denial. Scott only has the ninth-inning job because the Dodgers' original plan at closer fell apart during the season and he stepped into the vacuum. He'd been good in that role. This was the first time the stakes were actually October, and the stakes found him instantly: leadoff single, two-run homer, and a manager who didn't feel comfortable letting him finish what he started. A manager voted with his bullpen phone in real time.
If Roberts trusted Scott, Phillips never sees the mound in the ninth of a two-run game with the tying run on deck. He does, because Roberts has already seen enough to know a four-run lead isn't safe with Scott on the bump. Underneath the three home runs and the dominant start, the Dodgers have a guy they call their closer, and a manager who manages like he isn't one. The ninth innings will decide this series.
