LOS ANGELES — The radar gun said 98.4. The thermometer said 100. Heat, everywhere you looked.
On Saturday, for the first time in his big-league career, Tarik Skubal started a ballgame with a fastball that clocked in below the first-pitch temperature. One inning later, he bested the sultry conditions with a 101.1 mph heater. Neither the weather nor the Atlanta Braves were a match for the two-time Cy Young Award winner.
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Skubal conquered them both in NLDS Game 1, tossing a gem to lead the two-time defending champs to a rousing 5-3 victory. Beneath a cruel sun and a cloudless sky, Skubal, the trade deadline headliner, stole the show in his first postseason start as a Dodger. The hottest MLB postseason game since Game 1 of the 2017 World Series was a fitting environment for a guy who grew up on the fringes of the Mojave Desert. Rocking three-quarter-length sleeves, the towering southpaw looked entirely unaffected by the triple-digit heat.
“I thought Tarik was fantastic. I thought the fastball was really good …” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “Obviously, probably the hottest game he’s pitched in.”
Slow down there, skip. Skubal, who grew up in Kingman, Arizona, alleged during his postgame news conference that he played in even harsher conditions as a kid.
“I played a Little League game in 127,” the Dodgers lefty claimed. “Lake Havasu.”
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Temperature logs from the biggest city in Mohave County, Arizona, tell a slightly different story. The steamiest day on record that overlaps with Skubal’s Little League tenure was a comparatively frosty 124-degree afternoon on June 20, 2008. But details aside, that boiling day 18 years ago in Lake Havasu stuck in Skubal’s mind for a reason: It ain’t easy pitching in a convection oven.
“I always say the best way to combat weather, if it’s cold or hot, is to have quick innings and get your guys back on the field hitting and getting off the mound,” he said.
Good thing, then, that Skubal spent more of his afternoon relaxing between innings in the Dodgers clubhouse than he did boiling in the sun. After allowing a single to the first batter of the game, Atlanta DH Drake Baldwin, the 6-foot-3, 240-pound hurler retired the next 15 Braves. As often happens with starters in the October pressure-cooker, Skubal’s fastball velocity jumped a full mile per hour above its season average. That allowed his dastardly changeup to be even more effective, conjuring eight whiffs on 15 swings.
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Those five untouchable innings were a resounding reminder of why the former Detroit Tiger dominated the discourse around this year’s trade deadline. No starting pitcher is an automatic win, but Skubal might be as close as it comes. He finished the day with seven strikeouts across six innings, with Sean Murphy’s solo crank in the sixth the only blotch on an otherwise decisive showing.
That swing from the Atlanta backstop, which cut L.A.’s lead to 2-1, offered the Braves their only opportunity to turn a waltz into a contest. Skubal oh so briefly wavered, walking the nine-hitter, Ha-Seong Kim, before collecting a pair of outs on fielder’s choices. Another free pass to Ozzie Albies followed, and the Braves had the tying run on second and the go-ahead run on first with two out.
The game tightened. Skubal’s pitch count rounded 90. All-Star slugger Matt Olson strode to the plate. Pitching coach Mark Prior sauntered to the mound for a visit. Down in the bullpen, reliever Alex Vesia readied himself to enter the fray. More than 50,000 sweaty and sunburned souls rose to their feet.
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Then Skubal, of course, rose to the occasion.
Olson flied out harmlessly to left field on a 99.7-mph fastball a few inches off the plate. Skubal hollered and pumped his fist into his glove as he strode back toward a welcoming Dodgers dugout. His day was done. Only then did the 29-year-old soon-to-be free agent realize just how unrelentingly warm it was.
“I didn’t really think it was that hot out there until I got done and I walked back in the dugout, and I asked — I forget who was sitting, I think it was Snell — I was like, ‘Has it been this hot all game?'” he said afterward.
Atlanta starter Dylan Dodd, an Illinois-raised lefty, didn’t wilt in the conditions, either. Dodd was a silver lining for the Braves, tossing three scoreless innings in his first MLB start since 2023. Skubal, for comparison, has made 100 starts in that time. In fact, Dodd’s most recent start at any level was a Sept. 19, 2024, outing for the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.
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Even so, Dodd traded punches with Skubal until the Braves lefty ran out of pitches. Atlanta skipper Walt Weiss went to Victor Mederos to start the fourth. Teoscar Hernández greeted the new arm with a two-run long ball to put the Dodgers on the board, a blast that included one of the farthest-flung bat flips you’ll ever see.
Kyle Tucker clobbered a two-run shot right after Skubal’s departure to put the Dodgers up three. Max Muncy added a solo blast later in the frame. Atlanta would claw back in the ninth with an Ozzie Albies two-run homer off Tanner Scott, eventually bringing the tying run to the plate. But Evan Phillips ended things by getting a lazy bouncer off Austin Riley’s bat.
An understandably exhausted and dehydrated crowd roared one last time. On Sunday, some of them will return to watch another two-time Cy Young, Blake Snell, try to silence Atlanta’s bats once again. Such is the absurdity of L.A.’s rotation. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, last October’s grand hero, won’t throw until Game 3. Skubal might not need to pitch again in this series.
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As the victorious Dodgers flooded the field for ceremonial high-fives and handshakes with towels covering their necks, a graphic reading “10 more wins” blinked across the stadium jumbotrons. For any other franchise, that sentiment might come across as purely aspirational. For the Dodgers, though, it feels like a statement of intent.
October in Los Angeles has begun, and it only gets hotter from here.
