The Dodgers Are One Win Away From Skipping the Wild-Card Round

Any Dodgers win or Braves loss clinches a bye straight to the National League Division Series, which opens Saturday, October 3.

The Padres beat the Dodgers 5-1 at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night, True Blue LA reported. The loss snapped an 11-game home winning streak.

It barely touched the number that matters this week. Los Angeles needs one more win, or one Atlanta Braves loss, to skip the wild-card round entirely.

Without the bye, the postseason opens in the wild-card round on Tuesday, September 29. With it, the Dodgers rest until the National League Division Series begins Saturday, October 3.

Who gets the bye

Only two National League teams get one: the two division winners with the best records. The Dodgers already have their division.

They clinched a fifth straight NL West title with a win in Cincinnati on September 16, according to True Blue LA's Eric Stephen. It's their 13th division crown in 14 seasons.

Two days earlier, also against the Reds, they'd locked up a 14th consecutive playoff berth. That ties the major league record the Braves set with 14 straight trips. Atlanta's run went from 1991 to 2005.

The math, as of Wednesday

The NL division leaders, through September 23:

• Milwaukee Brewers, 99-59
• Dodgers, 97-61
• Atlanta Braves, 93-65

Everybody has four games left. Put any pair of these teams side by side and there are eight results in play between them.

The catch for Los Angeles is that the Dodgers don't hold the tiebreaker against Milwaukee or Atlanta. A tie goes to the other team, so the Dodgers have to finish with the better record outright.

Against Atlanta, that's a low bar. The Dodgers' magic number over the Braves is one.

For Atlanta to steal the No. 2 seed, it needs all eight results to break its way. That means four wins of its own and four Dodgers losses. Both clubs would finish 97-65, and the Braves would take the tiebreaker.

Any Dodgers win ends that.

The top seed is a harder climb. The Dodgers' magic number over Milwaukee is seven, the outlet reported. In plain terms, seven of the eight results have to go their way. The Brewers need only two to finish with the league's best record for a second straight year.

Run it out and even a four-game sweep to close the season isn't enough on its own. The Dodgers would still need the Brewers to drop three of their last four.

How they got here

Wednesday's loss followed a shutout of San Diego in the series opener. Freddie Freeman drove in three runs, Tommy Edman and Will Smith homered, and the Dodgers used eight pitchers to get through it.

They'd gone 6-1 the week before. The loudest of those wins came September 18 against the Giants, an 8-2 game. It turned on four Dodgers home runs in the eighth inning, including two sets of back-to-back shots.

The Dodgers and Padres meet again in what True Blue LA billed as the last home game before the playoffs. A Dodgers win there, or a Braves loss anywhere, and the first October date on the calendar becomes Saturday, October 3.

Source: truebluela.com, retrieved September 24, 2026.