Braves go for sweep of Dodgers as Chris Sale duels another ace

Possible signs of resurgence aside, this game offers quite a lot of intrigue in its own right. For one, the Braves haven't swept the Dodgers since May of 2013. For another, it's a second consecutive " Chris Sale pitches against another ace" matchup. Last week, it was Sale versus pitching fWAR leader Jacob Misiorowski . This time, he'll square off against Yoshinobu Yamamoto , who is currently 11th in MLB in pitching fWAR (Sale is sixth).

Now in his third season stateside, Yamamoto's stats are a bit off his stellar 2025 campaign (60/70/74 ERA-/FIP-/xFIP-), but still very good: 63/76/80. He's been durable and consistent. Impressively, Yamamoto hasn't had back-to-back starts with an FIP- above 100 this year, and it's only happened in terms of xFIP- once. Generally dominant, he hasn't really been blown up this year — sometimes there are not-so-great peripherals starts, but he makes do. So, this will be a tough nut to crack for the Braves.

But, Chris Sale is also a tough nut to crack. He enters tonight's start with basically video game numbers for a starter: 53/54/65, and 4.9 fWAR in "just" 135 innings. It's been pretty much a repeat of his 2024 Cy Young-winning campaign so far, with only the context that Misiorowski and Cristopher Sanchez are destroying hitters even more lingering out in the atmosphere.