Andy Pages Saved the Dodgers' NLDS — but Their Biggest Flaw Remains
GOATIFYAndy Pages entered the National League Division Series carrying questions about his October hitting. He left Atlanta as the player who sent the Dodgers to a third consecutive NL Championship Series. His two-run single in the seventh inning of Game 4 broke a 1-1 tie, helped Los Angeles beat the Braves 4-1, and secured a 3-1 series victory.
The comeback was personal for Pages, who had struggled in last year's postseason and begun this series without a hit. It also exposed a larger truth about the Dodgers: their pitching and power can win games, but their failure to capitalize with runners in scoring position remains a concern.
Roberts trusted Pages — and the seventh inning proved why
Dave Roberts had a decision to make before the Dodgers traveled to Atlanta: trust Andy Pages to rediscover his swing or treat another difficult October as evidence that the center fielder could not be relied upon. The 2025 postseason had been brutal. Pages produced a .211 OPS, lost his starting job during the World Series and carried that history into a new championship defense. His important defensive catch in Game 7 had helped the Dodgers win, but it did not erase questions about his bat.
The first two games of the 2026 NL Division Series did not help. Pages went hitless in seven at-bats against the Braves, and his lack of recent playing time made the drought more worrying. A fractured left hand had kept him out for much of the final month of the regular season. Postseason pitching is unforgiving even when a hitter has been seeing live velocity every day; returning from an interruption can make timing and confidence more fragile. It would have been easy for Roberts to shorten the leash, especially on a team with championship expectations and alternatives on the bench.
Instead, Roberts weighed the longer record. Pages had been a first-time All-Star and an integral part of the Dodgers' 2026 lineup. The manager publicly insisted that Los Angeles would need him involved to win another World Series. That was more than a comforting quote: it was a choice to preserve a role and let a player work through a short stretch of poor results. The payoff began in Game 3, when Pages collected two hits, and arrived fully in Game 4, when he added two more and supplied the most consequential swing of the series.
Atlanta's Tyler Mahle had been controlling the game after the teams traded early runs. Michael Harris II opened the first inning with a single, stole second and eventually scored on a wild pitch. The Dodgers answered in the second with help from Braves defensive mistakes. After that, both clubs struggled to produce the sustained offense that turns a narrow postseason game into a comfortable one. Mahle remained effective into the seventh, and Los Angeles was still searching for its first genuine hit with runners in scoring position in the entire series.
Teoscar Hernández finally gave the Dodgers a chance with a one-out single. Mahle was removed, and Atlanta turned to Didier Fuentes, the young reliever who had frustrated Los Angeles during a long Game 2 appearance. Fuentes got an out, but walks to pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker filled the bases. Tommy Edman had replaced De Paula as a pinch-runner, putting another potential run within scoring distance. Braves manager Walt Weiss then called on Robert Suarez to face Pages with two outs and the game tied at 1-1.
Pages did not chase the spectacle. He worked Suarez to a full count, stayed with a high-velocity fastball and sent it through the middle for a two-run single. Hernández and Edman scored. In a few seconds, the Dodgers had gone from a tied game and a potentially wasted inning to a 3-1 lead. The hit was not a towering home run, but it was the exact kind of controlled contact their lineup had failed to find with men on base. It also changed the interpretation of Roberts' decision: the manager had kept a struggling hitter in position to produce when the moment finally arrived.
The story is not a universal argument against benching slumping players. A postseason manager must account for injury, matchups, defense and the quality of available replacements. Here, however, the short-term numbers had not erased the underlying player. Pages had already shown he could help a very good lineup over a full season. His seventh-inning at-bat was a reminder that confidence and preparation can matter when a team is deciding whether to trust its established talent for one more game.
The Dodgers advanced — but their scoring-position problem is still there
One timely single was enough to win the game, but it also highlighted the problem Los Angeles must address before the NL Championship Series. The Dodgers started the NLDS without a hit in their first 14 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Pages finally broke that drought in the seventh inning of Game 4. Even after his decisive swing, the club finished the four-game series with just one hit in 20 such plate appearances, according to MLB's account. Winning a postseason series while leaving that much potential offense unused is unusual, and it is not a pattern a contender should expect to repeat.
The Dodgers had been leaning on home runs to cover the lack of sustained rallies. Their first 10 runs of this postseason all came on long balls, so the two-run single mattered as evidence that they could still score without clearing the fence. But one exception does not establish a new offensive identity. A team with Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and other accomplished hitters should be capable of combining walks, singles and extra-base hits more often than Los Angeles managed against Atlanta.
Pitching made that inefficiency survivable. Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since September 24, gave up only one hit in four and two-thirds innings in Game 4, although five walks showed that his command was not as sharp as his hit total suggested. Alex Vesia escaped a difficult fifth inning, Edgardo Henriquez handled the middle innings, Tanner Scott retired the side in the eighth and Edwin Díaz secured the final three outs. The staff held Atlanta to three hits in the clincher and eight runs in the entire series. When pitchers limit damage that effectively, an offense does not need to be efficient on every opportunity.
Atlanta's own missed chances mattered. Harris' early run put the Braves ahead, but they could not build a meaningful cushion. The Braves drew plenty of walks during the series without converting them into the runs required to pressure the Dodgers. That failure made the seventh-inning bullpen decision more consequential. Mahle had thrown only 85 pitches when he was pulled after Hernández singled. Fuentes entered after a demanding appearance earlier in the series and struggled to locate the ball, walking two hitters. Suarez inherited the bases-loaded situation and surrendered the decisive Pages hit.
It is tempting to pin Atlanta's elimination on that sequence alone, but the roster context was difficult. Injuries had stripped away much of the Braves' starting-pitching depth, forcing the team to depend on bullpen games and repeated high-leverage relief work. Fuentes had thrown 47 pitches during a long Game 2 appearance. The Dodgers could deploy established starters and multiple dependable relievers; Atlanta was asking a much thinner staff to navigate a lineup that can punish even a small mistake. Weiss had decisions to make, but he did not have an unlimited supply of rested alternatives.
Max Muncy made sure Pages' hit held up by adding a solo home run in the ninth, pushing the score to 4-1. It was Muncy's third homer of the NLDS and his 19th postseason home run as a Dodger, extending the franchise record. The shot reinforced a strength that has carried this team through October: Los Angeles can create runs from almost nothing with one swing. Yet the contrast with its runners-in-scoring-position record remained glaring. The Dodgers were capable of both a power surge and an extended stretch of wasted traffic.
The series win sent Los Angeles to a third consecutive NLCS, and its fifth straight road postseason victory tied a franchise mark. The Dodgers will meet the winner of Milwaukee versus San Diego, with the next round scheduled to begin Sunday, October 11. A Brewers matchup would open in Milwaukee; a Padres matchup would give Los Angeles home-field advantage. Those opponents offer different matchups, but both can look at the Braves series and see a route to keeping games close: avoid unnecessary baserunners, make the Dodgers produce hits with men aboard and resist the home-run ball.
Pages' success is encouraging precisely because it gives Los Angeles another way to win. He took a difficult at-bat, stayed inside the moment and converted the opportunity that had eluded the rest of the order. But the championship defense will not be secure if the lineup waits for one player to rescue every missed chance. The next round is the real test of whether the Dodgers have learned to turn pressure into runs, rather than relying on elite pitching to survive the opportunities they leave behind.
Roberts trusted Pages to keep his place in the lineup, and Pages delivered the hit that decided the series. The Dodgers can celebrate a deserved NLCS berth, another deep postseason run and a lineup that still has the power to change a game instantly.
But they should not mistake one breakthrough for a fully repaired offense. Los Angeles is eight wins from a possible World Series three-peat. Its next opponent will demand more consistent run production than Atlanta did.
