MLB Playoffs 2019: Odds, TV Schedule, Predictions for Sunday's NLDS

Both NLDS series were evened up at one game apiece Friday night.

Atlanta Braves starter Mike Foltynewicz hurled a shutout against the St. Louis Cardinals' red-hot Jack Flaherty, winning a 3-0 pitchers' duel, while Los Angeles Dodgers icon Clayton Kershaw gave up three runs in the first two innings against the Washington Nationals, putting his team behind for good and adding yet another postseason hiccup to his already-questionable October resume.

But none of these four teams should worry just yet. Each of their Game 3 starters gives them a legitimate chance to take the series lead and sit on the brink of an NLCS appearance.

Friday MLB Postseason Schedule and Odds

Odds via Caesars.

Game 3: Atlanta (-115; Bet $115 to win $100) at St. Louis (+105; Bet $100 to win $105) (4:10 p.m. ET, TBS) 

Game 3: Los Angeles (+112; Bet $100 to win $112) at Washington (-122; Bet $122 to win $100) (7:45 p.m. ET, TBS)

Predictions

Atlanta over St. Louis

There's not much differentiating these teams at this stage. On one hand, the Cardinals will be starting Adam Wainwright. Not only is Wainwright in a groove as of late, posting a 5-1 record in September with a 2.97 ERA, but he is a postseason legend, famously closing out the 2006 World Series as a rookie.

However, Wainwright's one start against Atlanta this year did not go well. He lasted just four innings, allowing five earned runs and walking five in a 10-2 loss. And while most of the Braves have not hit well through two games, one notable hitter who has is Ronald Acuna Jr., who is hitting .500/.556/1.125 against St. Louis. And while he's just one player, Acuna has proved this season that he is the generational talent that was promised, one who can alter the course of games by himself.

It helps that Atlanta will be countering Wainwright with Mike Soroka. The rookie recorded a 4.00 ERA in September, his worst monthly ERA of the season, but still went 3-1 over five starts. In addition, per MLB.com's Mark Bowman, Soroka entered his last regular-season start with the third-lowest road ERA in MLB history, trailing only Greg Maddux in 1995 and Roger Clemens in 2005.

As a team, the Braves are hitting just .258 through two games. If they can get the rest of their powerhouse lineup around Acuna to start hitting at their usual levels, then they will have Game 3, and perhaps the series, in hand.

Washington over Los Angeles

Somehow, Game 3 of the Dodgers-Nationals series boasts an even better pitching matchup than Wainwright-Soroka. L.A. will be starting ERA champ Hyun-Jin Ryu, who ranks second on ESPN's Cy Young Predictor, against Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young winner who recorded his lowest win total since 2009 this year but remains a dominant force on the mound. This is the stuff October dreams are made of.

Ryu's 2019 season is one of the great stories in recent memory. After years of battling injuries, he was among the best pitchers in baseball from start to finish this year. Ryu gave up three earned runs over six May starts and just five earned runs over ten starts between May 1 and June 28.

This excellence extended to the Nationals specifically as well. In two starts against Washington, Ryu pitched 14 ⅔ innings and allowed just one earned run in two Dodgers wins, and that was against a Nationals team that boasted the MLB leader in runs batted in and recorded the sixth-most runs in the league.

But as Ryu's rotation mate Kershaw has reminded us over many years, consistent regular-season success does not guarantee a postseason triumph, and Ryu himself was bad in last year's playoffs, recording a 5.21 ERA throughout all three rounds. This might not usually be a big deal, but his counterpart Sunday is a stone-cold killer and one of the great pitchers of the modern era.

Scherzer gave us a sneak peak of his postseason mindset Friday night, striking out the side in the eighth inning to help to seal Washington's Game 2 victory. He threw 14 pitches, 11 of which were strikes, and was generally as dominant as a reliever can get. But the most depressing part for the Dodgers, as they watched Scherzer set down Gavin Lux, Chris Taylor and Joc Pederson in order, was realizing that he would be able to do this for an entire game Sunday.

The three-time Cy Young winner was uneven in the wild-card game against the Milwaukee Brewers, giving up two home runs, and has ups and downs in his playoff history. But his inning Friday still doesn't bode well for Los Angeles. If he can keep that same energy and pitch seven or eight great innings Sunday night, limiting Washington's abysmal bullpen as much as possible, then the Dodgers are in trouble.