All four of Major League Baseball’s best-of-five Division Series are in action Tuesday with two NLDS Game 1s and a pair of ALDS Game 2s. On the American League side of the bracket, the Astros topped the Athletics and the Yankees outslugged the Rays en route to 1-0 series leads on Monday. The National League joined the party Tuesday.

Here’s a look at the day’s games and what to know about each.

MLB playoff scores

FINAL: Braves 9, Marlins 5 — Braves lead 1-0
LIVE: Astros vs. A’s — Astros lead 1-0
Yankees vs. Rays – 8:10 p.m. ET (TBS) — Yankees lead 1-0
Padres vs. Dodgers – 9:38 p.m. ET (FS1) — Series tied 0-0

Braves power up, pull away after tempers flare

The Marlins and the Braves started the day’s action with a back-and-forth contest that featured some elevated tempers after Ronald Acuna Jr., who hit a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, was struck by a Sandy Alcantara pitch in the third. Acuna appeared to take exception to Alcantara’s errant offering, and the two sides jawed before he took his base. (He later scored from first.)

While Alcantara had no reason to intentionally hit Acuna, it’s worth noting that the two sides have history. Acuna has been hit by 19 pitches in his career; four of those have been thrown by Marlins pitchers. No other team has hit Acuna more than twice. 

The FS1 broadcast interviewed Braves manager Brian Snitker during the game. When asked about the hit-by-pitch, he said: “I’ll probably get in trouble if I tell you exactly what I think.” Clearly, then, the Braves believe the Marlins were intentionally throwing at Acuna. 

Moving on, the scrappy Marlins clawed their way to a three-run third, giving them a 4-1 lead. The Braves got two back in the bottom half, but the lead remained 4-3 heading to the seventh for the Marlins. That seemed like a big deal at the time, given that the Marlins were 28-0 in the regular season when leading on their way to the seventh inning. 

Then again, the Braves had 13 come-from-behind wins this season and have some serious offensive firepower. They showed it in the seventh. Back-to-back singles started things off to chase starter Sandy Alcantara. It could be argued the bullpen should have taken over and surely Alcantara only giving up a single to Ronald Acuna while seeing him a fourth time was a bit of a dodged bullet, given the alternative in a one-run game. 

The Marlins then pegged Yimi Garcia, a right-hander, to face Freddie Freeman, who absolutely destroys righties. It actually worked, for a quick second. Freeman grounded into a fielder’s choice. But then Marcell Ozuna singled to tie it and then Travis d’Arnaud broke things open with a three-run shot: 

It’s worth mention that Garcia had major problems in giving up the long ball in previous years (32 HR allowed in 159 2/3 innings before this season), but had made it through 15 regular-season innings and two more innings so far in the postseason without having allowed a single homer. Perhaps it was only a matter of time against this powerful Braves offense. 

Due to the likes of Acuna, Freeman, Ozuna and even Dansby Swanson and Adam Duvall with big years, d’Arnaud’s huge season at the plate has flown under the radar. He hit .321/.386/.533 with eight doubles, nine homers and 34 RBI in 44 regular-season games. 

Later in the seventh, Swanson added a two-run shot and all of a sudden the Braves didn’t even have to sweat out the late innings. A six-run seventh was the difference here, and the Braves lead the best-of-five series, 1-0. 

Something to watch if the series goes the distance: Max Fried only threw 70 pitches for the Braves and, with no off days this year in this round, Game 5 now could see the No. 1 coming back on short rest. The guess is Fried can handle that. For the Marlins, Alcantara went to 95 pitches. It’s not a ton and he’ll probably be OK to come back, but he’d be the more compromised of the two. 

Yankees vs. Rays (8:10 p.m. ET, TBS)

Game 2 between the Yankees and Rays will feature a battle of curveball artists. New York rookie right-hander Deivi Garcia will be making his postseason debut. Tyler Glasnow, meanwhile, will be trying to get the Rays on the board, lest they enter Thursday in a win-or-go-home situation.

Arguably the most anticipated series of the round will launch last. The Dodgers will start Walker Buehler, but with due respect to him the bigger news is who’ll be opposing him. Mike Clevinger, who missed the first round because of injury, is back and will be on the bump for the Padres.