Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — There are baseball fans of a certain age who can remember what is known as the “Sandberg Game,” a Saturday afternoon game in June on 1984 that announced the arrival of Ryne Sandberg as a superstar in the sport. Sandberg went 6-for-7 in the game as the Cubbies came from behind numerous times to beat Bruce Sutter and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Now, Friday night’s game will never live in baseball lore like that one, but I for one am dubbing that game the “Pages Game” in honor of the exploits of the Dodgers’ phenomonal rookie Andy Pages.
The at-bat that turned a solid performance by Pages into a truly memorable one was the final epic AB of the game. With the winning run parked on third in the bottom of the eleventh inning, Pages stepped into the box against veteran reliever Jesse Chavez. It was clear what Chavez was up to almost immediately. It was one of those at-bats that looked like a unannounced intentional walk. Chavez threw pitch after pitch after pitch off the plate, obviously hoping that Pages would go chasing or if not, he’d be on first base with a meaningless run. Bravos skipper Brian Snitker clearly wanted nothing to do with Pages, who already had collected three hits on the night.
Problem is, nobody told Andy Pages about this plan. He was having none of it. On several occasions, he reached into the left hand batter’s box and swatted foul obvious balls, just daring Chavez to come into the strike zone with a pitch. And after five straight pitches outside of the strike zone, Chavez finally did, but Pages fouled it off. So Chavez went back outside another time. And Pages reached down and swatted yet another ball four away.
Finally after the steady diet of outside pitches, Chavez had a decent idea: jam the guy inside. And it almost worked. But Pages was ready he muscled the pitch into center field where it dropped just in front of the hard charging Michael Harris II for the game-winning hit. It. Was. Awesome.
“Really impressive from Andy,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “He wasn’t going to let anyone else win that game for us tonight. We trusted the head, trusted the talent, obviously, and he just rose to the occasion. It was fun to watch.”
“It’s happened to me in the past where I get anxious and I don’t get the job done,” Pages said in Spanish after the game. “This time I was just trying to stay calm and things worked out.”
This is just the latest highlight in the early season heroics of Pages, who has announced his arrival in the most emphatic way possible. Called up on April 16th in the wake of an injury to Justin Heyward, Pages smacked the first big league pitch he saw into right field for a hit. Things were a little rough after that, as he adjusted to his new surroundings. In the midst of that crummy homestand, Pages struggled with his plate discipline and struck out a lot in those first few games. After his first week with the club, his average sat at .182 and he had struck out nine times. Sub-optimal.
However, once the Dodgers got out of California, Pages found his stride. His three-hit day on April 24 started a nine-game hit streak that culminated in Friday’s late-night heroics. At the end of the night, Pages’s batting average stood at .333 with an OPS of .921. Pretty damn impressive.
His teammates like what they see. “Watching him play, watching him develop these last couple weeks up here, he’s a great guy,” said Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández after the game on Friday. “He’s always trying to get better. Today he showed that he’s made for the big moments. He’s not afraid to go out there and have success.”
They say Jason Heyward is working his way back to the team and will be rejoining the Dodgers soon. Great. But once he arrives, Dave Roberts will have a roster decision to make. But one decision that he is sure NOT to make is to send Andy Pages back to Oklahoma City.
Get this man a lower number stat. He’s not going anywhere.
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