LOS ANGELES — And just when you were having visions of the Dodgers’ next series, and the possibility of baseball’s first repeat champion in 25 seasons …
BOOM!!!
A Philadelphia Phillies ballclub suffering from a lack of production by its stars, and maybe struggling through the same inactivity-driven malaise that bedeviled the Dodgers in 2022 and ’23 after first-round byes, received a tape-measure jolt from its own MVP candidate in the fourth inning of Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Wednesday night. Kyle Schwarber, who had been 0 for his last 22 going into that at-bat, attacked – there’s no better way to say it – a 96.4 mph four-seam fastball from Yoshinobu Yamamoto on a 2-and-0 count, hitting a 455-foot missile to lead off the fourth that bounced off the roof of the right field pavilion.
“I mean, when I hit it, I know it’s a home run,” Schwarber said. “I didn’t even see where it landed. I was looking in the dugout trying to get the guys going, get back in the dugout (where) everyone is high-fiving. And I knew I hit it good. I didn’t know where it went. Eventually somebody tells me. You watch it on video where it goes.
“I was just more focused on our guys there. I don’t care. Like you said, it could go in the first row, it could hit the freakin’ (video) board right there. I don’t care. But hits are great, homers are great, walks are great, anything positive for our offense is going to be great. But, yeah, it was a cool moment.”
It came after Yamamoto retired the first nine men he faced. Darned right, it sent a message.
“The Schwarber home run kind of woke everybody up and got a lot of energy going in the dugout,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said after his team’s 8-2 win.
And it shouldn’t go unnoticed that this particular homer, which tied the score after Tommy Edman gave the Dodgers the lead in the previous inning, was followed by two singles, a scoring fly ball, and an Andy Pages throwing error from center field that allowed a third run to score. Philly nursed that 3-1 lead until the eighth, when it scored five times off of reliever Clayton Kershaw, including J.T. Realmuto’s leadoff homer and Schwarber’s second of the game, this one a comparatively modest 368-footer that bounced off the top of the right field fence.
“Sometimes homers are rally killers,” Phillies shortstop Trea Turner said. “To get those extra runs in that inning were big, and it starts with him.
“It’s ridiculous how far that ball went. But I just think like the vibes, the energy, it’s something to build off. Sometimes it’s hard to create your own momentum. And you’ve got to build off things like that. No better way than the ball leaving the stadium.”
Wakeup call? No doubt. Schwarber hadn’t had a hit since Sept. 24, when he was 4 for 5 with two homers.
“It felt good, right?” he said. “Hits are great. Guys on base, great, anything like that, any sort of pressure. And when you get an instant run right there, especially, you’re able to answer back there.
“To get the answer back and for us keeping those at-bats going (and get more runs). … Those are all big, key things for us as we keep moving forward going into tomorrow, that we want to keep pressure on any way possible. And I felt like we kept that going through the game.”
Schwarber is now in third place all-time in postseason home runs, and he acknowledged that he’s “been very fortunate being in a lot of postseason games in my career. And it’s just the best form of baseball. I sincerely believe that it doesn’t matter, like I said, you could be hitting .100 or be hitting .500. Did you win the game at the end of the day? That’s all that matters.
“That’s why it’s such a fun format. You’re just grinding, trying to find a way to win a baseball game. And it’s going to work out and sometimes, and it’s not going to work out. But at the end of the day, the preparation is still going to be there. The intensity is going to be there. And the buy-in from everyone is going to be there.”
Now the pressure is on the Dodgers to rally themselves – after looking if not deflated, at least shaken – and to close it out Thursday to avoid a trip back to Philadelphia for a deciding fifth game on Saturday.
Is it overkill to suggest a psychological dimension here? Maybe, but maybe not. Yamamoto, who finished the regular season with a 12-8 record and 2.49 ERA and has looked very much the ace of the staff, didn’t make it through the fifth inning. And after successfully dealing with the noise and hostility to win Games 1 and 2 in Philly, the Dodgers seemed to have been flattened by that one big punch on their own turf.
Of course, it can be argued that the Dodgers were also flattened in Game 4 of last year’s World Series in Yankee Stadium, and came back the next night to nail down a championship. If they’re going to pull that off this time, they’re better off not waiting until the fifth inning – and for the other team’s botched plays – to get going.
So the burden is on Tyler Glasnow, Thursday’s Dodger starter. He was strong in September (3-0, 2.49 in four starts), and he provided a needed 1⅔ innings of relief in the Dodgers’ Game 1 victory in this series. But this will be his biggest assignment as a Dodger.
And heaven help them if these two home runs get Schwarber going on a serious heater.
“You make mistakes, you pitch behind, that’s what’s going to happen,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You get 2-0, you try to go fastball away, gets to the big part of the plate, home run. And then Clayton, I think, tried to go away and missed middle or middle up close to him, and it’s another homer.
“You’ve got to make pitches against those guys. They start getting some results and they start feeling good. We’ve got to make pitches and work ahead.”
The alternative? The Dodgers will ultimately regret letting Schwarber, and the Phillies, off the mat.
jalexander@scng.com