Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — First things first. I would like to send a heartfelt message to Big Papi, and to A-Rod, and to Derek Jeter, and to all the other columnists and pundits who picked the Padres to triumph over my Los Angeles Dodgers. Will you kindly please take a flying leap into the nearest canyon? Thank you. Now onto the article…
All of those pundits who did pick the Padres had a point on paper. It did look as if the Dodgers, who had an amazing offense, was a little suspect in the pitching department. After all, they only had one completely healthy and trusted starter, Jack Flaherty. Two of their starters have known heights, Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but were in various stages of returning from injury, and neither looked to be his old self just yet. And the final starter, Landon Knack, was an untested rookie who was only pressed into service after injuries to Gavin Stone and Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers’ bullpen, the pundits, said, was good, but nothing compared to the Padres’ relievers, which were bolstered by GM AJ Preller’s savvy trade deadline acquisitions. The Dodgers will get their hits, the pundits surmised, but in the end, when things get tight and the game is on the line, the Padres’ pitching will prevail.
So, pundits, how does it feel to be so completely wrong about something? How does it feel to predict one thing, and then watch as the EXACT OPPOSITE THING unfolds right before your eyes? Not so great, I’d imagine. But for Dodger fans, it feels glorious.
24 straight scoreless innnings. Two straight shutouts. Machado and Profar with OPS south of .500 (bye, Manny!). And the “strutting, dancing peacock” of Fernando Tatis Jr., who did damage early in the series, was almost completely held in check over the last two games: 0-for-his-last-8 with no RBI and two strikeouts. And, in a bit of delicious irony, he failed to come through in what turned out to be the key moment in Game 5.
In his second at-bat, he faced Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the third inning with men on first and second. Yamamoto had just given up back-to-back singles to Kyle Higashioka and Luis Arraez, and it looked like his command of the strike zone was starting to slip a bit. And indeed, he fell behind Tatis 3-1 and things were looking very grim indeed for the Dodgers’ rookie. However, the dude threw the pitch he needed to throw when he needed to throw it. He got Tatis to bite on a slider just below the zone and ground into a 5-4-3 around-the-horn double play to get out of the inning. He would go on two pitch two more scoreless frames before giving it over to the bullpen for the final four innings. His performance, quite simply, was masterful: 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 5 K. Lots of weak contact. Kudos to manager Dave Roberts for looking his ace in the eye and seeing that he had this kind of night in him, when all the numbers against the Padres told us he did not. Wow.
And the bullpen that came in after him was just as good. Evan Phillips had a 1-2-3 sixth. Phillips and Alex Vesia combined to strike out the side in the seventh. In the eighth, after Vesia had to be removed from the game due to a back spasm, Michael Kopech came in breathing fire. He got Xander Bogaerts to line to second, retired David Peralta on a harmlesss infield popup and then blew the doors off Jake Cronenworth, striking him out on a 102 miles per hour of delicious high cheese. Finally, in the ninth, Blake Treinen came in and was equally efficient, getting groundout, flyout, ground out to end the game with a flourish. As hitting hero Kike Hernandez scooped up the final short hop off the bat of Fernando Tatis Jr. (there goes that man, again!), he flipped the ball to Max Muncy at first, and the series belonged to the Dodgers.
It was one of the best nights at the ballpark I’ve ever had the chance to experience. The crowd was electric, and though the bats were relatively quiet, they got two monumental blasts from the Hernandez boys to carry the day. It was so satisfying to shut up those Padres and their backers in the media. For once, the Dodgers carried the day, and now, they can get on to the business of doing what they should have done in years past: win it all for LA.
Thanks to the Dodgers, and their “suspect” pitching staff. And as for those pundits? In closing I would like to quote noted baseball enthusiast Jack Flaherty when he said the following earlier in the week: “Sit the f*ck down, motherf*cker!”
Now bring on the Mets!
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