The Los Angeles Dodgers are entering the 2026 National League Division Series with a pitching decision that would have seemed unthinkable twelve months ago: the ace who won three games and was named Most Valuable Player of last year’s World Series will not start Game 1. Instead, that assignment belongs to Tarik Skubal, a two-time American League Cy Young Award winner the Dodgers acquired in a trade-deadline deal with the Detroit Tigers barely two months ago. The Dodgers host the Atlanta Braves on Saturday at Dodger Stadium to open a best-of-five series, and buried inside that pitching decision is a second, entirely separate storyline that has consumed Korean sports media for the better part of a week — the possibility that two Korean-born infielders, both named Kim, could appear in the same postseason game for the first time in MLB history.
Why Skubal and Not Last Year’s World Series Hero
Yoshinobu Yamamoto is not just a frontline starter for the Dodgers; he is the pitcher most directly responsible for last year’s championship. He won three games during the 2025 World Series run and was named the Series’ Most Valuable Player for his performance. Handing him the ball for Game 1 of a new postseason would have been the obvious, low-risk move for most managers. The Dodgers instead turned to Skubal, and multiple Korean outlets covering the decision framed it as a genuinely surprising call, with one headline asking directly: is this really the Dodgers?
The explanation being reported centers on a matchup consideration rather than a referendum on Yamamoto’s form. Atlanta’s lineup has reportedly struggled against left-handed pitching this season, and Skubal — a left-hander — was seen as the pitcher best equipped to exploit that weakness in a single, win-or-keep-playing Game 1. Yamamoto remains very much part of the rotation picture for the rest of the series; this is being described as a Game 1-specific call built around the shape of Atlanta’s roster, not a long-term benching.
Who Is Tarik Skubal, and Why Does a Two-Time Cy Young Winner Need Introducing
For readers who do not follow the American League closely, Skubal’s résumé might be the most important piece of context here. He has won the American League Cy Young Award in back-to-back seasons, a distinction that places him among the smallest handful of pitchers anywhere in baseball over that stretch. He spent the bulk of his career with the Detroit Tigers, establishing himself as one of the sport’s most dominant left-handed starters, before the Dodgers made him a trade-deadline target in early August, sending three prospects to Detroit to acquire him.
Since joining Los Angeles, Skubal has made the move look like exactly the kind of blockbuster a championship-caliber team makes at the deadline: he has gone 5-2 with a 2.61 ERA in a Dodgers uniform. Those are front-of-the-rotation numbers by any measure, and they explain why the club felt comfortable leaning on him for a Game 1 assignment that, in a different season, almost certainly would have belonged to Yamamoto by default. The move also illustrates something about how championship-level front offices operate: even a reigning World Series MVP can find himself behind a newer arm if the matchup logic points that way.
Atlanta Arrives as a Familiar, Difficult Opponent
The Braves are not an unfamiliar name on the Dodgers’ postseason ledger. Atlanta has been described in Korean baseball coverage as a team the Dodgers have struggled against in high-stakes games in recent history, and the Braves arrive in this series having just survived a winner-take-all Wild Card Game 3 against the Philadelphia Phillies to punch their ticket to the NLDS. That series went the full three games, with Atlanta needing a complete rollercoaster of results — an extra-innings loss in Game 2 immediately followed by a decisive Game 3 win — to advance. The Braves will be playing their third consecutive postseason game in which something close to a must-win atmosphere has applied, while the Dodgers have had a longer runway to rest and set their rotation exactly how they wanted.
That context matters for understanding why the Dodgers felt free to make a matchup-driven call for Game 1 rather than simply running out their most decorated arm. With an extra days of rest built into the schedule, the margin for a calculated gamble on handedness is larger than it would be in a tighter turnaround.
Kim Ha-seong’s Complicated Path Back to the Postseason
Tangled into all of this pitching maneuvering is the ongoing story of Kim Ha-seong, Atlanta’s infielder, whose 2026 season has been, by any statistical measure, the worst of his major league career. Playing in only 51 games, Kim finished the regular season hitting .116 with 15 hits — numbers that would typically make a postseason roster spot anything but guaranteed. Atlanta included him anyway, a decision that speaks to what the club still believes he can provide in specific situations, particularly his defensive range at shortstop and his track record in big moments earlier in his career, including a National League Gold Glove and Silver Slugger in 2022.
Kim’s postseason has so far reflected exactly how complicated his situation is. He started at shortstop and batted ninth in both Game 1 and Game 2 of the Wild Card Series against Philadelphia, reaching base for the first time this postseason via a walk and later coming around to score in Game 2. But when the series reached its decisive third game — the one that actually determined whether Atlanta’s season continued — manager Brian Snitker left Kim on the bench entirely, turning instead to utility infielder Mauricio Dubón at shortstop. Atlanta won that game and advanced, meaning the team that made the NLDS did so without its struggling Korean infielder in the lineup for the biggest game of the series so far.
The pattern reported around Atlanta’s deployment of Kim down the stretch and into the postseason has been built around the handedness of the opposing starter: Kim starts against left-handed pitching, and sits when a right-hander takes the mound. That detail becomes immediately relevant for Game 1 of the NLDS, because the Dodgers are sending out a left-hander in Skubal. If the pattern holds, Kim would be in line to start at shortstop in Game 1 — though as of this writing, Atlanta has not released an official starting lineup, and that expectation should be treated as exactly that: an expectation based on a known pattern, not a confirmed fact.
The Other Kim: A Dramatic, Last-Minute Addition to the Dodgers’ Roster
While Atlanta’s roster drama centers on whether Kim Ha-seong will play, the Dodgers have a parallel story unfolding around a different player who shares his surname. Hyeseong Kim, a Dodgers infielder who had spent recent weeks at Triple-A Oklahoma City, was called up to the Dodgers’ major league roster on September 30. That call-up alone does not guarantee a spot on the 25-man active roster for the NLDS — teams routinely carry more players on their 40-man roster than can actually dress for a playoff series — and multiple reports in the days since his promotion have reached different conclusions about his chances. Some American coverage earlier in the roster-construction process suggested a different player, infielder Alex Freeland, was the favorite for the final bench spot. More recent Korean-language reporting around the roster announcement has struck a more optimistic tone about Hyeseong Kim’s inclusion, citing his standing as one of the fastest position players in the Dodgers’ organization as a point in his favor for a pinch-running and late-game defensive role.
Because the Dodgers, like Atlanta, had not finalized and announced their official NLDS roster and Game 1 lineup at the time of this report, Hyeseong Kim’s actual participation in the series remains unconfirmed. What is confirmed is that his call-up alone was enough to set off a wave of Korean media coverage asking the same question from multiple angles: could this be the series where two Korean-born infielders, both carrying the surname Kim, share a postseason field for the first time in major league history?
Why a Potential “Kim vs. Kim” Moment Matters Beyond the Novelty
It would be easy to dismiss the shared surname as a cosmetic storyline, the kind of coincidence that makes for a catchy headline but carries no real substance. But the underlying context gives it genuine weight. Kim Ha-seong is a well-established former All-Star-caliber defender trying to salvage something from the single worst offensive season of his career, on a team that kept faith in him anyway. Hyeseong Kim is a largely unproven, speed-and-defense specialist who was in the minor leagues as recently as two weeks ago, getting an emergency opportunity because of exactly the kind of margin-of-the-roster calculations that define October baseball. One has a résumé built over several MLB seasons; the other is hoping his career-defining moment is still ahead of him. If both appear in the same game, it would mark a genuine first for Korean players in MLB postseason history, and it would do so through two players whose paths to that moment could not look more different.
There is also a broader signal buried in both players’ presence on postseason rosters at all. A decade ago, it would have been unusual for two different National League contenders to be carrying Korean-born infielders deep into October, let alone debating whether both might play meaningful roles in the same series. Their presence, regardless of how the roster questions resolve, reflects how normalized Korean talent at the infield positions has become at the highest level of North American professional baseball.
A Three-Peat Bid Starts Against a Familiar Obstacle
There is one more layer of stakes worth spelling out. The Dodgers are not simply trying to win a division series; they are attempting to win a third consecutive World Series title, a feat that would place this current roster core among the more dominant stretches in the sport’s modern history. Korean-language baseball coverage previewing the series has repeatedly framed Atlanta as exactly the kind of opponent capable of derailing that bid — a club with recent playoff pedigree of its own and a roster built to make life difficult for a Dodgers lineup that will see plenty of October pressure over the coming weeks if the three-peat bid is going to stay alive. Choosing to open that bid with a trade-deadline rental rather than the most decorated pitcher on the roster is, in that light, as much a statement about how the front office views the entire month ahead as it is about a single Saturday afternoon.
It also raises a practical question that will shape the rest of the series regardless of how Game 1 unfolds: where does Yamamoto fit now? A pitcher of his caliber and recent postseason track record is not going anywhere, and most reasonable expectations have him starting one of the first two games regardless of what Skubal does in the opener. But the decision to lead with Skubal means the Dodgers have already signaled, before a single pitch of this series has been thrown, that they are willing to deviate from the obvious script when a specific matchup argument is strong enough. That is a notable departure from the kind of conservative, seniority-based rotation planning that often governs postseason pitching decisions, and it will be worth watching whether the same matchup-first approach extends to lineup decisions in Atlanta’s dugout as well, particularly around Kim Ha-seong’s playing time against right-handed starters later in the series.
What Happens Next
Game 1 is scheduled for Saturday at Dodger Stadium, with Skubal taking the mound for Los Angeles against an Atlanta staff that has not yet announced its own starter. Both rosters — and with them, the answers to whether Kim Ha-seong starts and whether Hyeseong Kim even dresses for the game — are expected to be finalized in the hours before first pitch. The series itself is a best-of-five, meaning Atlanta, which has now played three consecutive win-or-go-home-style games dating back to the Wild Card round, will need to find another gear quickly against a Dodgers team that has had the luxury of setting its rotation exactly as it pleased.
For now, the storylines sit in that particular space unique to October baseball, where a single pitching decision can carry both strategic weight and symbolic resonance. The Dodgers’ choice to bypass last year’s World Series hero in favor of a pitcher they owned for barely two months says something about how little loyalty championship contenders owe to past performance when a better matchup is on the table. And the quiet drama playing out around two players who happen to share a last name says something about how far Korean representation in this sport has come — regardless of whether either man’s name ends up in Saturday’s starting lineup at all.