Obviously, the Dodgers aren’t the only ones who respond when challenged. The Atlanta Braves can do so as well.
Much was made of the way the Dodgers responded down the stretch in September after the San Diego Padres had won the opener of a key three-game series. And of the way the Dodgers responded Wednesday after losing the first two games of the National League Championship Series, posting an 11-run first inning against the Braves and going from there.
Atlanta had its answer Thursday night, a six-run sixth inning, driving future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw to cover and piling up singles and doubles against Brusdar Graterol and Victor González, the heretofore bright lights of the Dodgers’ bullpen. Then they added runs in the seventh and eighth as exclamation points en route to a 10-2 victory and a 3-1 series lead.
And now the team with baseball’s best record, the team with such depth and such pitching and such a mission to end a 32-year drought without a World Series championship, finds itself at the edge of the cliff.
The Dodgers had the opportunity to feast on the lesser lights of the Atlanta pitching staff this week, but gorging themselves in Game 3 didn’t help Thursday night. Bryse Wilson, a 22-year-old right-hander who had just two regular-season starts and was making his postseason debut, outpitched Kershaw: Six innings, five strikeouts, 74 pitches and Edwin Rios’ home run the only hit.
Those of us who figured the Braves’ starting pitching suspect after Max Fried and Ian Anderson perhaps should have looked closer. Wilson had a 4.02 regular-season ERA over six appearances, but most of that was in relief. In two starts toward the end of September, he gave up one run in 10 innings against the Marlins and Red Sox.
So much for what yours truly called the soft underbelly of the Braves’ pitching staff. It was stout enough that the Dodgers scored once and left the bases loaded in the seventh, in their opportunity to respond to Atlanta’s six-run inning. And then Marcell Ozuna – who right now looks like this season’s best free-agent signing – slugged his second home run of the game for an 8-2 lead.
Ozuna took one year and $18 million (pro-rated, of course, because of the pandemic-shortened season) from the Braves last offseason, and his .338 average, 18 homers, 56 RBIs and 1.067 OPS in the regular season should get him a raise from someone this winter even in a depressed market. His postseason hadn’t been much to rave about until Thursday night, but with four hits (including two homers) and four RBIs he raised his playoff OPS from .565 to .868 in the span of five at-bats.
“He’s just a good hitter,” Kershaw said on a Zoom press conference afterward. “You know, he had a great year this year. He’s had lots of great years. I think I made a few mistakes to him. I think maybe some other guys did, too. But … he didn’t miss. That’s what good hitters do.”
Did this game represent the Dodgers’ last eight Octobers in microcosm? That might be overstatement, but it did have three of the key characteristics of past postseasons: A revival of the “Kershaw can’t cut it in the postseason” narrative, a decision by Manager Dave Roberts that boomeranged and another horrid performance from relief pitchers in a high-leverage situation.
The Kershaw characterization might be slightly unfair. He pitched reasonably well for five innings, giving up four hits – including Ozuna’s first homer, a 422-foot shot off the facade of the second deck in left field – and striking out four.
Ronald Acuña Jr. started the sixth with a chopper off the artificial turf for an infield hit, taking second when Kiké Hernández’s throw went into the dugout. Freddie Freeman shot a ground ball past Max Muncy and into right field to score Acuña, and with Mookie Betts playing Freeman more toward right-center, the Braves’ first baseman was able to leg it into a double.
Roberts said he felt the two ground ball hits were not enough to warrant taking Kershaw out at that point. He’d thrown 81 pitches to that point, 10 in that inning.
“You induce weak contact, a tough play … and there’s another ground ball by the first baseman,” Roberts said. “I thought Clayton was throwing the baseball really well and there was no reason (to remove him). I just felt really good about it.”
But it got away quickly. Ozuna had hit the ball hard all night; even the double play he hit into in the first inning was smoked, 104.4 mph, and the fourth-inning home run was 108.6 mph. And this time he would drill a 3-and-2 curveball from Kershaw to center, a 107.5 mph bullet, to score Freeman for a 3-1 Atlanta lead.
Then, of course, Roberts made the change and that blew up as well, as the two relievers who had previously been dependable weren’t. Graterol pitched to four batters, gave up three hits, allowed an inherited runner to score for the first time all season (he’d stranded the previous nine) as well as two of his own, and left two runners on for González, who gave up an RBI single to Cristian Pache to make it 7-1.
In all, 11 men came to the plate in the Atlanta sixth. That enough of a response for you?
The only possible drama left was foiled in the seventh when Atlanta manager Brian Snitker got his Will Smith, the left-handed reliever, out of the game before the Dodgers could get their Will Smith, the right-handed hitting catcher, up to the plate to pinch-hit.
Otherwise it ended with a whimper. Ozuna slammed a 434-foot shot over the center field fence in the seventh off Dylan Floro, and the Braves tacked on two more runs in the eighth that included the sight of first baseman Matt Beaty letting a throw tick off his glove and then neglecting to chase the baseball.The Dodgers looked beaten. Their consolation is it’s still best-of-seven, there’s a game Friday night, and miracles are still possible until they aren’t.
“They still got to beat us another time,” Roberts said. “I still believe in every single guy in that clubhouse.”
And they only have to win three straight now, not four straight as Roberts’ 2004 Boston Red Sox had to. Nothing to it, right?
jalexander@scng.com
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