LOS ANGELES — The San Francisco Giants are either (a) a team of destiny or (b) living an incredibly charmed life, depending on which side of the divide you’re on. How else to explain Monday night and the way they’ve pushed the Dodgers to the brink?
I mean, we can’t account for every single one of the Giants’ 107 regular-season victories, but the number of comebacks, walk-off wins and late-night outbursts along the way pretty well established that besides a team that exceeded the sum of its parts, they’ve had some source of magic riding along with them.
But, on a night when conditions didn’t favor the hitters, the difference was one pitch thrown from an otherwise dominant pitcher to a hitter who, to that point, probably couldn’t have hit him with an oar?
When Evan Longoria turned on that 0-and-2 pitch from Max Scherzer in the fifth, he was 2 for 19 lifetime against the Dodgers right-hander, with a home run and two RBs. And before that at-bat he was 1 for his last 34 against the entire league: 1 for 26 to end the regular season, 0 for 8 in this series.
And then he redirected Scherzer’s four-seam fastball and sent it into the left field pavilion. It was 96.3 mph coming in and 110 mph going out, landing 407 feet from home plate, muscled through the teeth of heavy winds. One good swing, by the former St. John Bosco High and Long Beach State star, that was enough to tilt the best-of-five National League Division Series in the Giants’ favor.
Tuesday night at 6, the Dodgers will try to avoid elimination with what probably will be a bullpen game and might include a cameo, or more, by Walker Buehler. And the champs must now ask themselves if they feel up to attempting to outrun fate.
It probably was an ominous sign when the Dodgers were greeted by conditions that prompted memories of the Giants’ old and less-than-beloved home, Candlestick Park. Officially, the wind at first pitch was measured at 18 mph. The twin flags in center field, the Stars and Stripes and the Dodgers’ 2020 World Champions pennant, were pointing toward the right field foul pole for most of the evening.
“I grew up here,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “I don’t remember a lot of nights at Dodger Stadium where the wind was blowing like that. It was super strange. I thought as a result our outfielders really played a great game on defense.”
Two balls that could have gone out were cut down by the gusts: Chris Taylor’s 107 mph drive in the sixth inning with a man on was caught by Steven Duggar at the wall, and Gavin Lux’s 106.9 mph shot with two out in the ninth was again cut down by the wind and dropped into Duggar’s glove.
“Those would have been home runs,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was huge. Two balls right there, and it would have been a different outcome. But it’s an element both teams had to play with. That’s baseball.”
And if the wind was cutting balls down in center and in left, imagine how hard Longoria must have hit his ball.
“I knew I got every bit of it, as far as how hard I can hit a baseball,” the 36-year-old Longoria said. “But I wasn’t quite sure it was going to go out.
“The conditions tonight were crazy. I don’t think I’ve stepped out of the box as many times in my career as I did in the middle of at-bats tonight. A couple of times I thought I’d get blown over by the wind. There was a lot of dust in my eyes. It was definitely a little more difficult environment to hit in and play in tonight. I think if that ball didn’t go out tonight I might as well have just cashed it in.”
The normal tendency is to wonder why a guy who was 1 for whatever was even in the lineup. But Kapler said he saw progress.
“We talked about it a little bit pregame,” he said. “His swings have been more on time recently, and he has run into a stretch where calls haven’t gone his way. He’s gotten into some disadvantage counts that it’s hard to climb out of against the pitchers he’s facing.
“But I saw the bat speed, the explosiveness, the good decision-making. Eventually, a caliber of player like Longo is gonna run into a pitch to hit and put a good swing on it.”
So how was Longoria able to keep his slump from overwhelming him?
“It’s definitely in my mind, and I’m keeping it out of my mind,” he said. “I’ve hit some balls pretty hard that haven’t fallen. Obviously, I was trying to stay as positive as I can and really not take my at-bats into the field, to try to play defense and keep us in the game out there, and try to believe at some point that a hit’s gonna fall in.”
If the Dodgers wished to belabor fate, they could grouse about the eight balls they hit over 100 mph that the Giants turned into outs. Maybe luck, maybe good positioning, maybe superior defensive skill. For sure, Mookie Betts had reason to complain, after Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford snared his 101.2 mph grounder for the third out in the fifth with a man on, and then made a leaping stab of Betts’ 100.4 mph line drive to strand two more runners in the seventh.
But it is safe to assume the grousing won’t last. Tuesday is an elimination game, and if the Dodgers survive it, so is Thursday in San Francisco.
“Our focus has to turn to tomorrow, to whatever it takes to win tomorrow, and then kind of pick up the pieces after that,” Roberts said.
The alternative: If fortune truly isn’t on their side, they’ll have all winter to think about it.
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