The National League Division Series are both going to be driven by their bullpens, but these matchups feel nothing alike.

Atlanta’s job is to survive long enough to make their regular-season success against Los Angeles matter. The Braves won five of six, but they come into at Dodger Stadium less than 48 hours after finishing a three-game fight with Philadelphia. Their ace can’t start Game 1. Their next-best starter can’t go until Game 3.

Milwaukee and San Diego are working on a much shorter clock.

The Brewers had the National League’s best bullpen. The Padres have Mason Miller waiting at the end of theirs. Once either team gets a lead and hands the ball over, the game might already be finished.

Same round. Completely different pressure.

How To Watch

Braves-Dodgers gets going Saturday at 4 p.m. ET on FOX. Game 2 follows Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, then the series heads to Atlanta for Game 3 on Tuesday.

Padres-Brewers starts Saturday at 8:30 p.m. ET on FS1. Game 2 is set for Sunday at 4 p.m. ET, with Game 3 moving to San Diego on Tuesday night.

Dodgers-Braves: Did The Braves Use Too Much To Get Here?

The Braves didn’t just use Chris Sale to beat the Phillies in the Wild Card round. They used him twice.

Sale threw 95 pitches over 6 1/3 innings in Game 1, then volunteered for the bullpen in Game 3 and came on for the final four outs of the series a little more than 48 hours later. It was awesome, and exactly what an elimination game called for. It also means the 37-year-old won’t be available to start until Game 2.

Tyler Mahle, who gave up one run over seven innings in Wednesday’s 10-inning loss, won’t be ready until Game 3. Bryce Elder's out after knee surgery. Martín Pérez can’t be activated until Tuesday. Didier Fuentes pitched in all three Wild Card games and might be the only Atlanta reliever unavailable Saturday.

So Game 1 probably belongs to some combination of Brent Suter, Ray Kerr, and Grant Holmes. That group just handled a winner-take-all game beautifully — Kerr opened with 3 1/3 scoreless innings and Holmes followed with two — but asking them to do it again against the Dodgers, on one day of rest, is a very different ask.

Los Angeles gets to answer with Tarik Skubal.

The Dodgers could’ve started Yoshinobu Yamamoto and lined him up for a normal-rest Game 5. Instead, they went with the two-time reigning American League Cy Young winner they picked up at the deadline. Skubal finished 12–7 with a 2.72 ERA and has a 2.04 postseason ERA across six career starts. Yamamoto, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow are waiting behind him.

That’s what happens when you turn off the salary cap settings in franchise mode.

The gap is glaring, but Atlanta's earned the right to believe they can hang in this series. The Braves went 5–1 against Los Angeles and outscored the Dodgers 26–15 during the regular season. Their August sweep in Atlanta took three one-run wins. Sale finished the last one with an 11-strikeout complete-game shutout.

Those games showed Atlanta can win a slugfest and stare down an elite starter. They also came with Sale available to clean up the mess himself. He can’t do that Saturday.

The Braves’ best path is to steal the opener, get Sale back for Game 2, and come back home at least tied. That means Ronald Acuña Jr., Drake Baldwin, and Matt Olson have to make Skubal work right away. Acuña went 1-for-9 in the Wild Card round and Baldwin went 2-for-13. Not great.

Los Angeles may have the big name starters, but that bullpen is a totally different conversation. Edwin Díaz returned from elbow surgery and finished with an 8.68 ERA in 21 appearances. Tanner Scott and Roki Sasaki are the other options, not exactly guys you trust. Roberts may use all three depending on the matchup, which is a polite way of saying nobody really owns the ninth.

The Dodgers’ lineup has their own question marks. Shohei Ohtani posted a .666 OPS over his final 29 games while dealing with a few nagging injuries. Freddie Freeman's slugging .355 since the start of July. Kyle Tucker finished his first season in LA with a .715 OPS.

The encouraging side is ridiculous, too. Tucker posted an .890 OPS with six homers in September. Mookie Betts finished the month at 1.112, and Teoscar Hernández was at .965. A week of rest gave Ohtani time to heal and Roberts time to organize the deepest lineup in the series.

The Series Turns on Saturday

That leaves one big question: Can Atlanta steal a game before the top of their rotation is back?

If the Braves leave Los Angeles tied 1–1, this series gets interesting fast. Mahle has a 1.99 ERA in nine starts and Atlanta already knows the Dodgers’ bullpen can get got. But if the Braves drop both games in Los Angeles, that regular-season record starts to feel like a nice memory from a completely different season.

Atlanta’s good enough to make this a real fight. LA's rested enough to handle it.

The pick: Dodgers in four.

Brewers-Padres: The First Lead Might Be The Whole Game

There’s no subtle way to talk about Jacob Misiorowski’s season.

He went 16–5 with a 1.80 ERA, 252 strikeouts, a 0.80 WHIP, and a .157 opponent average over 174 2/3 innings. He led the majors in all four categories. The only pitchers in history to pair 250 strikeouts with a WHIP that low are Misiorowski, Pedro Martínez, and Justin Verlander.

So, yeah. Good luck everybody.

San Diego's going to counter with Robbie Ray in Game 1, and the choice makes more sense than his numbers do. Milwaukee hit .245 against lefties and .264 against righties, so the matchup itself isn’t the issue. Ray can miss bats, he’s got experience in October, and starting him lets Michael King and Nick Pivetta come back on normal rest in Games 2 and 3.

The problem is that Ray posted a 5.02 ERA with 27 walks in 43 innings after the Padres got him. His career postseason ERA is 7.43. Manager Craig Stammen basically laid out the whole plan when he said Ray “can be erratic at times” but gives San Diego a chance if he throws strikes.

That’s a pretty important “if.”

Both teams know exactly how this formula works.

Milwaukee’s bullpen led the NL with a 3.40 ERA. Trevor Megill converted 30 of 33 save chances, and Abner Uribe finished with a 1.97 ERA. San Diego’s relief group ranked third in the league at 3.53. Adrian Morejon brings a 99.5-mph sinker and a 1.85 ERA over his last 34 innings. Miller finished with 38 saves, a 1.67 ERA, and 129 strikeouts in 70 innings, because apparently throwing 103 mph wasn’t rude enough by itself.

Once either team gets through seven innings with a lead, the rest of the night turns into a series of increasingly worse options for the other lineup.

That’s why “first blood” means more than a cute theme here. Milwaukee and San Diego both want to play from in front and make the other offense chase elite velocity. Stammen said it plainly:

Get out to an early lead and let the bullpen handle it.

The offenses just go about creating that lead in very different ways.

Milwaukee hit an MLB-best .258 and scored the second-most runs despite finishing last in the National League in home runs. The Brewers put the ball in play and hit better with runners in scoring position than any other team in the majors. That’s how they won 103 games and finished with a plus-214 run differential without needing one giant swing every night.

San Diego's much more comfortable waiting for that giant swing.

Fernando Tatis Jr. posted a 1.066 OPS with eight homers in September, then hit the first pitch he saw in the postseason out of Petco Park. Manny Machado homered two batters later. Michael King took a no-hitter into the seventh, and the Padres beat the Cubs 8–0. The next night, Gavin Sheets came off the bench and turned a 100.8-mph fastball into a two-run homer that broke open a 4–1 clincher.

The Padres led after 17 of the 18 innings and held the league’s highest-scoring offense to one run. They’re making games feel over almost as soon as they start.

San Diego also won four of six against Milwaukee, including a three-game August sweep at Petco Park. But the most revealing meeting came much earlier. On May 14th, Misiorowski dominated the Padres for seven innings, and Milwaukee took a lead into the ninth. Uribe got within one out of finishing the job. Then Sheets hit a go-ahead three-run homer.

Since that blown save, Uribe has allowed four runs over his last 43 innings.

That’s the series in a nutshell.

The Pressure Will Show Up Early

Game 2 could be even tighter. Logan Henderson went 11–3 with a 2.47 ERA and hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his first 23 major-league starts. King, who’s likely going to start on the other side, just held Chicago to one hit over seven scoreless innings. Pivetta should give San Diego the rotation edge in Game 3, when Milwaukee might have to choose between a struggling Dustin May and an opener.

So the big question is pretty simple: Which offense can create pressure before the velocity shows up?

San Diego has the bigger stars and the more experienced October lineup. Milwaukee has the deeper offense, the steadier Game 1 starter, and home-field advantage if this goes the distance. Misiorowski can also come back for Game 5 on full rest, which feels like a pretty important detail when the other team’s entire plan is to make sure they never fall behind.

The Padres are dangerous enough to land the first punch.

The Brewers just look a little better equipped to land the last one.

The pick: Brewers in five.

All stats courtesy of MLB.com.

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