The Fox broadcast guys were fumbling with this one. Austin Barnes, heretofore Clayton Kershaw’s personal catcher and now appearing to add Walker Buehler’s starts to his resumé, had just followed a near-perfect safety squeeze bunt in the fourth inning with a booming 425-foot home run into the Tampa Bay bullpen in the sixth, for the Dodgers’ sixth run in their 6-2 Game 3 victory on Friday night.
At first, John Smoltz suggested – guessed? – that it might have been the first time it ever happened in World Series play. An inning later, they received word that it wasn’t. Hector Lopez of the Yankees had tripled home a run, hit a three-run homer and squeezed home a fifth run in Game 5 of the 1961 World Series, a game in which the Yankees put the Reds out of their misery and won the Series, 13-5.
OK, before Stats Inc. or the Elias Sports Bureau or SABR come up with any more names, let’s put it this way: Austin Barnes is the first alumnus of Riverside Poly to homer and squeeze home a run in the same World Series game. That work for you, former Bears?
But wait: There’s more. The home run ended his 0-for-22 hitless drought in World Series play, dating to Game 7 in 2017. I suppose that’s good, in a sense, because it means he’s at least playing frequently in late October. It was the longest Series hitless streak since another 0 for 22, by the Yankees’ Bernie Williams, who also broke his with a home run in a clincher, Game 5 against the Mets in 2000.
Just being in uniform has been a vast improvement over 2019 for Barnes. He appeared in just 75 games that regular season, hit .203 with a .633 OPS, and was left off the roster for the NL Division Series against Washington in favor of Will Smith and Russell Martin.
“You still get those nerves for the guys, and you obviously want them to win,” Barnes recalled Friday night. “Yeah, it’s nice to be in these and have a little bit of control behind the play.”
That control this year has put the Dodgers within two victories of that long-awaited first championship since 1988, which is plenty good enough.
And while Barnes has taken a secondary role to Will Smith largely because of Smith’s offensive skills, he has carved out a role as Kershaw’s regular receiver and has gained Buehler’s trust as well. Buehler credited Barnes with helping guide him through the bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the second inning of NLCS Game 6 against Atlanta last weekend, and Friday night Buehler struck out 10 in six innings and 93 pitches and Barnes’ pitch-framing skills probably had a bit to do with it.
Pitch framing – often interpreted as stealing strikes – has become a critical metric in evaluating catchers, and Barnes is one of the better ones. He said it’s equally about getting balls called strikes and keeping pitches in the strike zone from being called balls.
“Obviously you don’t want to lose strikes in the zone for your pitcher,” he said. “Those ones come back and kind of bite you a little bit. … You’re just fighting for your pitcher every pitch.”
RELATED: Austin Barnes’ Riverside roots run deep
Buehler diplomatically said he enjoyed pitching to both Barnes and Smith.
“They’re both extremely talented,” he said. “I threw to Will most of the year and it was fine. Anything that says I’m better with Barnes has a lot to do with me not being very good this year when Will caught me. I think we have 1A and 1B.”
The Dodgers have the best of both worlds when Smith is the DH and Barnes catches, although that means they’re one injury away from Matt Beaty strapping on the gear. And when Barnes is asked to talk about his offensive contributions after a game, it’s a sign things are going good.
The bunt, perfectly executed, came on the second pitch from Charlie Morton in the fourth inning with Cody Bellinger on third and Joc Pederson on first. Barnes squared to bunt and took the first pitch for a ball. Then he pushed one perfectly between the pitcher’s mound and first base, with Bellinger scoring easily as the out was recorded – and Pederson taking second, from where he’d score on Mookie Betts’ single.
“They ask you to do something, you need to do it,” Barnes said. “Runs are at a premium in the postseason, as everybody knows. … The runners on base did a great job selling it. And when you sell it, it’s a real hard play to defend.”
Manager Dave Roberts noted that the presence of Bellinger with his baserunning skills and Morton’s success against right-handed hitters played into the decision to bunt, plus, “I trust Austin handling the bat.”
That’s not insignificant. Not everybody on a major league roster can bunt.
“I just felt that, nothing against (Ji-Man) Choi at first base, but I just don’t think he’s fleet of foot,” Roberts added. “So I felt if we can get something down on the right side of the infield we’ve got a good chance of getting an insurance run. And Austin did a great job of executing.”
Two innings later, he had another surprise in store, smacking an 0-and-2 slider from John Curtiss into the Rays’ bullpen in left field. It came in at 89 mph and left the bat at 104.3 mph.Which one do you think he’s going to brag about when this is all over?
“The homer,” Barnes said. “That’s a cool little stat (doing both), but it’s not easy to barrel a ball up against all these really good pitchers.”
He’s too self-effacing to boast anyway, but that’s all right. Those Poly Bears’ alumni will be bragging in his honor.
Austin, Texas. pic.twitter.com/0lvJcAHey6
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 24, 2020
https://goo.gl/hYDEHJA safety squeeze. A home run. Catching a @buehlersdayoff gem.
Austin Barnes talks about his big night with @jonmorosi.@Dodgers l #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/Bnmkez5BKI
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) October 24, 2020
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