ATLANTA — A lot of stuff happened. And then, in the ninth inning …
For the fourth time in their first eight games this postseason (and third in a row), the Dodgers went into the ninth inning with the score tied. And for the second time in this National League Championship Series, the Atlanta Braves scored in the ninth to walk off with a 5-4 victory in Game 2 on Sunday night.
The Braves rallied from two runs down in the eighth, erasing a Dodger lead for the third time in this series. In their postseason of living dangerously, the Dodgers return to Los Angeles down 2-0 in the best-of-seven NLCS with their only rested starting pitcher – Walker Buehler – lined up to start (well, we assume) Game 3 on Tuesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
“It hurts to lose in the fashion we did,” said Chris Taylor – the Game 1 goat for his baserunning mistake – who gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead with a two-out, two-run double in the seventh on Sunday. “But at the same time, we’ve been here before. We were here last year against them (also down 0-2 in the NLCS). It’s definitely going to feel good to go home and play in front of our home crowd.
“We’re tired. We’re ready to get home.”
The Dodgers’ World Series championship last October was won with a 34-stay in Arlington, Texas. This year, travel and home-field advantages have returned to the postseason and the Dodgers could be showing the residual effect of their five-game epic battle against the Giants and a cross-country relocation between rounds.
Taylor acknowledged these games have been “physically and mentally draining.”
“They’re four or five hours long. the level of focus is a little bit different than a regular-season game,” he said. “Yeah, it’s definitely exhausting. But that’s what you expect. Everyone on this team has experience with it.”
What you don’t expect is the team that boasted baseball’s best and deepest pitching staff to exhaust that group so thoroughly so quickly. Buehler is the last rested starting pitcher on the Dodgers’ roster because both Max Scherzer and Julio Urias pitched in Game 2 – and both let two-run leads get away.
The Dodgers handed Scherzer a 2-0 lead before he ever took the mound Sunday. Mookie Betts led off the game with a single and Corey Seager homered on the first pitch he saw from Braves starter Ian Anderson.
But the Seager homer was not a sign of things to come. Instead, the Dodgers slipped back into the offensive struggles that have characterized their postseason. They had scored two runs or fewer in four of their previous six games this postseason.
The Dodgers had just one hit – Will Smith’s third-inning single – in the 30 batters after Seager’s home run. But they still managed to put the leadoff man on base five times in the first seven innings and create scoring opportunities thanks to nine walks issued by Braves pitchers.
“Good God,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said when asked how his team had won Game 1 despite striking out 14 times and Game 2 despite issuing those nine walks. “I don’t have any hair (to pull out).”
The Dodgers helped in more earthly ways by going 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position in Game 2, 2 for 18 in the NLCS, 5 for 43 since Game 2 of the NL Division Series (their 9-2 breakout against the Giants) and …. it gets worse … 13 for 68 (.191) since the postseason started.
Back in August and most of September, a 2-0 lead in Scherzer’s hands would have been a T-bill just waiting to be cashed in.
October Scherzer has not been the same Scher thing.
Pitching for the fourth time in the Dodgers’ first eight postseason games (16-2/3 innings over a 12-day span), Scherzer labored into the fifth inning, surrendering a two-run home run to Joc Pederson in the fourth to tie the score.
“I would just say my arm was dead. I could tell when I was warming up that it was still tired,” Scherzer said, adding that he thought it would improve as he pitched but it didn’t.
“What I’m dealing with is just my arm’s dead. It wasn’t like I’m dealing with tendons or ligaments. Nothing. … I wasn’t dealing with red-flag injuries. It was just my arm was tired.”
Despite that cautionary tale about using starters out of the bullpen, they did it again. Roberts used Blake Treinen in the seventh with an eye toward using Urias out of the bullpen between his starts as well.
“We talked about it before the series and he was available last night if it came to the situation. It didn’t,” Roberts said, asserting that Urias is still in line to start Game 4 on Wednesday. “He hadn’t thrown a bullpen and he was the best option at that point in time. He was prepared for it. It was a perfect spot for him.”
It didn’t go perfectly. Urias gave up hits to three of the first four batters he faced in the eighth, including an RBI single to Ozzie Albies and a game-tying RBI double to Austin Riley.
When the Dodgers didn’t score in the top of the ninth – despite Trea Turner’s fly ball to the wall in left – Roberts started the ninth with Brusdar Graterol. With two outs and a runner on second, he brought Kenley Jansen in to face Eddie Rosario.
Rosario lined Jansen’s first pitch back through the middle. Jansen waved at it and it glanced off of Seager’s glove on its way to center field for a walk-off single.
“You better not leave early,” Snitker said. “This isn’t a team that – leave in the fourth quarter when the team’s down. You know what? You’ll end up missing the best part of the game and listening to it on your radio when you’re driving home.”
The Dodgers’ concern now has to be making sure they don’t go home early as well.
“Like I said, we’ve been here before,” Taylor said. “We know it’s one game at a time. We can’t worry about the next two or three or whatever. We’ve got to win on Tuesday and that’s what we’re focused on now.”
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER #WALKOFF!!! pic.twitter.com/Jrn82L91Dk
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021
.@coreyseager_5 gets it started. pic.twitter.com/uqu8a8rLcj
— MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2021
JOCTOBER CONTINUES! pic.twitter.com/3Etg3rVBlS
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021
Two-out magic!
The @Dodgers take the lead!
(MLB x @loanDepot) pic.twitter.com/ZJdv3DGBPw
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021
The @Braves are within a run.
pic.twitter.com/54OEaxtKKJ
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021
AUSTIN. RILEY.
THIS GAME IS TIED!!! pic.twitter.com/M0dnJhZO9k
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021
Will Smith’s revenge against Will Smith.
pic.twitter.com/nHQ7wGntQW
— MLB (@MLB) October 18, 2021