They’re only halfway there. The pitching matchups over the next few days might – might, I said – favor the Dodgers. And Tuesday’s ninth inning was almost deja vu all over again. Those are your caveats. That said, it’s impossible to have watched these first two games and not be thinking ...
This is really happening.
The Braves, October oafs for the past two decades, are two victories from the World Series
They’ve stolen a march on the team that tore through a 60-game season at a record pace. They’re up 2-0 in the National League Championship Series. They won Game 2 on Tuesday 8-7 after leading 7-0. They did it by doing as they’ve done since these giddy ride began. They dispatched a young starting pitcher who made us forget that, barely three weeks ago, we were sure the lack of starting pitching would be their undoing.
Asked Tuesday afternoon if he has been surprised by his starters this postseason, manager Brian Snitker said: “Probably.” Then Ian Anderson, who hadn’t yielded a run over 11-2/3 innings against the Reds and Marlins, stitched together four more zeroes. He needed 85 pitches to record 12 outs, but he gave baseball’s highest-scoring team no runs on one hit. His team led 2-0 when Anderson threw his final pitch, and that pitch told the tale of these two games.
Anderson faced Chris Taylor with two out and a man on first. The count ran to 2-2. Anderson, who’d just induced a swing-and-miss with an 87-mph change-up, followed it with a 95-mph fastball. Taylor swung and missed again. His face scrunched in disbelief, he gazed at the matrix board in center field of Globe Life Park to check the replay for confirmation. What in the wide world of sports was going on?
Something is happening, something nobody expected, the blueblood Dodgers least of all. Growing up before our eyes, the Braves have become – at least over seven playoff games – a colossus. They’ve not been beaten yet. They’ve trailed after four of 67 postseason innings. The opposition has scored in six of 67 innings.
The Braves' playoff ERA is 1.75. (It was 0.83 until A.J. Minter was touched by Corey Seager for a three-run homer in the seventh.) They’ve outscored opponents 36-13.
Yeah, yeah. We’re Atlanta. We never get anything right. We can’t drive in the snow. We gave the world 28-3. The NLCS is being played across the street from where the Falcons gawked at that onside kick. The Dodgers might yet turn this series. They’d better hurry, though. If these Braves harbored primal doubts about their capacity to function in October – anybody remember the Cardinals' 10-run inning? – they’re gone with the wind.
Speaking of which: How long has it been since the autumn wind seemed at this team’s back? Adam Duvall, who hit 16 home runs this season, hurt himself swinging at a Game 1 pitch and is lost for the duration. This led Snitker to install Cristian Pache, the 21-year-old owner of one big-league hit, in center field for Game 2. Pache’s second big-league hit, a ringing double down the left-field line off emergency starter Tony Gonsolin, scored Nick Markakis from first base to make the score 3-0 in the fifth.
Soon it would be 6-0, then 7-0. It was hard to tell which number – the “7” or the “0” – was more improbable. The Dodgers had led the majors in both runs and ERA, meaning they had the best hitting AND the best pitching. But here they were, being routed on a night the great Clayton Kershaw was scheduled to pitch.
As fate would have it, Kershaw woke up Tuesday with an ouchy back. (He has such issues.) The Dodgers had to deploy Gonsolin, a rookie who hadn’t worked since Sept. 26. Gonsolin was superb for three innings, allowing no base runners. He walked Ronald Acuna to open the fourth. Freddie Freeman then drove a 3-2 splitter 408 feet over the right-field fence. For the second time in two nights, Freeman put the Braves ahead. For the seventh time in seven playoff games, the Braves scored first.
For the second night running, Ozzie Albies hoisted a ninth-inning home run. Also for the second night running, Mark Melancon caught an Albies blast while readying in the bullpen. Will wonders never cease?
Melancon’s services as a closer shouldn’t have been required, but they were. Josh Tomlin was battered for three runs, two on Max Muncy’s screamer of a home run, in the ninth. It should have ended with a ground ball to Albies, but he flubbed it. Cody Bellinger drove home Will Smith with a triple to left. Was this really a one-run game? Yes, and here we had visions of Jim Leyritz and 28-3.
Not this time, though. A.J. Pollock smashed a grounder that Austin Riley gloved. His throw to first was true. Whew.
Said Melancon: “These games, you’re always on the edge of your seat.”
Asked if the Dodgers’ rally made him worry that a giant had awakened, Snitker said: “I’m not concerned any more than I was yesterday. This whole thing’s going to be tough.”
Asked if the Braves could “still take something positive" from the game despite almost blowing the lead, Melancon said: “That’s a terrible question. I’m not even going to answer it.”
We note for historical purposes that the Braves led the 1996 World Series 2-0 after outscoring the Yankees 14-1. This franchise hasn’t won a World Series game since. That might soon be subject to change. Anderson and Acuna and Pache and Albies weren’t born when that atrocity occurred. This is a different team in a different millennium. This is the team that might just force the world to stop snickering at Atlanta sports.
Three consecutive division titles told us this team was good, but nobody could have foreseen this. The Braves are two up on the Dodgers, and it’s not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary tale. This is really happening.
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