The Dodgers have been quite good for quite some time, but haven’t won it all since 1988 — the weight of that disappointment seems to grow heavier with each passing year that a stellar Los Angeles team can’t get it done.
For the moment, though, their World Series hopes remain alive, after a 7-3 win vs. the Braves in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on Friday night. They were favored entering the series, but their backs are still against the wall, trailing 3-2 heading into Game 6.
They’re used to high stakes, though, as this marks the Dodgers' fifth trip to the NLCS in the past eight years and fourth in the past five seasons. They went to the World Series in 2017 and 2018. This season, they won their record eighth consecutive National League West title, and entered the postseason with lofty expectations.
“It’s win or go home," said Corey Seager, who went 2-for-4 with three RBIs. "It’s simple. There’s no extra pressure, it is what it is. We know what’s at stake. Every game in any series, it’s just winning that day. It’s not looking forward, it’s not looking to the next day.”
For a few innings, there, it looked like the end might be nearing, but they finally put it all together, combining their heavy-hitting offense with a reliable performance from the bullpen (starter Dustin May was pulled early, after giving up two runs and walking two in two innings, but the bullpen held up).
“It was good to see everyone hold their own tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the bullpen, which combined to limit the Braves to one run.
They trailed by one run until the sixth, when catcher Will Smith crushed a three-run homer off Braves reliever Will Smith, giving the Dodgers a 4-2 advantage. They piled on with three more in the seventh, courtesy of an RBI single by Mookie Betts and a two-run homer by Seager. In the fourth, after the Braves pulled starter A.J. Minter (who exceeded expectations with zero runs on one hit, zero walks, striking out seven in three innings) for Tyler Matzek, Seager was the first to get them on the board with a solo shot to center field.
The game-changer for the Dodgers, though, was Betts' phenomenal defensive grab and a costly mistake made by Marcell Ozuna in the third inning, when he left third base too early, before Betts threw home, and was called out at third instead of putting Atlanta up by three.
Betts was mostly just focused on not falling over, considering the ground he had to cover to snag a fly ball from Dansby Swanson.
“I just knew I needed to stay on my feet in order to get a throw off and have a chance at him at home, so that was my whole plan to do whatever I can to stay on my feet," Betts said. "We were able to get a stop, really. Yesterday, we couldn’t stop the bleeding and today we were able to get a stop right there and put some pressure back on them. I think a 3-1 game right there, that’s attainable for sure.”
The play helped get things rolling for the Dodgers, per Seager.
“It’s not always on the offensive side that you get the spark," Seager said. "A big play like that, a big moment, changes everything for you. You go into the dugout with some energy, you scratch some runs and the whole thing changes.”
And, once the Dodgers are rolling, they’re difficult to stop (as the 15 runs scored in their Game 3 win would suggest).
It takes a while to list the ways in which they’ve excelled this season: their historic offense set an MLB record with 118 home runs, an average of 1.97 per game. They had the best record in baseball (43-17 in the regular season), and their .717 win percentage set a franchise record. Their deep starting pitching staff led the league in ERA (a collective 3.02), opponents' batting average (.231) and WHIP (1.06).
All year (granted, a truncated one), they’ve only lost one series. This one, obviously, is still in the works.
But the Braves have some potent offense of their own, and have stitched together more quality starting pitching than they originally seemed to have arsenal (remember 22-year-old rookie Bryse Wilson out-dueling Kershaw in Game 4?) In Game 5, Atlanta took a 1-0 lead in the first after a sacrifice fly by Travis d’Arnaud and made the score 2-0 in the second via a Cristian Pache RBI single.
Apart from a leadoff double by Freddie Freeman in the eighth, though, which led to one run after a ground out by d’Arnaud, this time the Braves failed to respond after the Dodgers piled on. They didn’t have a baserunner from the beginning of the fourth inning until the seventh, with the wind knocked out of them, it seemed, after the mistake by Ozuna.
So for now, the Dodgers are still in it. And they’ll try to put it all together again in Game 6.
“They did a great job,” Roberts said of how his team is handling the must-win scenario it finds itself in. “I think that just seeing the looseness and guys having fun preparing for the game, but when the game starts, it gets tense. And guys are focused. But some big hits, and Mookie’s play, offensively, defensively, obviously the big homers tonight kind of eased some things... The win was huge, obviously."
