Dodgers at Truist: first-place Braves host L.A. with the bats still ice-cold

Off Monday. Cute over. The Dodgers are at Truist for three nights, both clubs in first place, and the prize that actually moves October is a first-round bye.

Atlanta is 76-55 and 3 1/2 up on the Phillies. Los Angeles just hit 80 wins and sits 9 1/2 up in the West. MLB.com’s series preview is blunt: the top two seeds in each league skip the Wild Card round, and this is the last time these two get to do head-to-head damage.

The arms, in order

Tuesday: Tyler Glasnow vs. Bryce Elder (8-7, 3.92). Glasnow is back in the Dodgers rotation. Elder already beat this lineup once — 5 2/3 scoreless in May at Dodger Stadium.

Wednesday: Roki Sasaki vs. AJ Smith-Shawver, the kid Atlanta just recalled into a six-man.

Thursday: Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Chris Sale. That is the national-TV version of this series.

The silver lining MLB.com actually wrote down: Atlanta misses Tarik Skubal and Blake Snell this week. The rest of the staff is still a 3.48 ERA and a league-best .217 opponents’ average.

The slump did not stay in Pennsylvania

Harris’s ninth-inning homer in Williamsport stopped a homer-less stretch and a 1-5 week. It did not fix the lineup. Over the last 10 games, per MLB.com: Ronald Acuña Jr. is 6-for-40 (.150) with 16 strikeouts. Matt Olson .184. Ozzie Albies .216. Austin Riley .200. Team average .215, 88 punchouts, 71 hits. The Midwest trip averaged 2.1 runs a night before Sunday.

Dave Roberts called them “sort of scuffling” and promised L.A. would still get Atlanta’s best. That is manager-speak for we know you are first place and we know you cannot score.

The Dodgers are not clean either. They went 5-11, then ripped six straight against Colorado and Pittsburgh. Andy Pages is out at least four weeks with a fractured left hand. Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Kyle Tucker have been the names L.A. needs to stop being boom-or-bust. Health is coming the other way — Glasnow tonight, Shohei Ohtani not far behind.

What the series actually decides

Atlanta took two of three in Los Angeles in May. Acuña was on the IL then. Betts was just getting back. Both rosters are fuller now.

A Dodgers sweep clinches the season-series tiebreaker. Atlanta only needs to win the series. Split the six and the rest of the tiebreaker sheet comes out if these two are still tangled in late September. The Dodgers will still sit ahead of the Braves in the overall NL table when they leave town. The East lead is the thing Atlanta can actually pad — Colorado, San Francisco, and Washington are next, then four in Philadelphia starting Sept. 4.

First place with a quiet lineup is a rented costume. Three nights against this staff is the eviction notice or the proof.

Bird Gang bottom line

Harris bought them a flight home. Elder, Smith-Shawver, and Sale have to buy the week. If Acuña, Olson, and Riley look like the last 10 games against Glasnow and Yamamoto, the 3 1/2-game cushion starts to feel like a weekend. Win the series and October’s bye conversation stays on Peachtree.

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