LOS ANGELES — October baseball isn’t all the time a crapshoot.
Sometimes, the sport’s deepest-pocketed, most talent-rich juggernaut swats away an 83-win, small-market opponent like a pesky fly.
A Los Angeles Dodgers staff that had hoped to be resting up for the division collection this week played its way out of the wild-card round as quickly as possible Wednesday. They swept a Cincinnati Reds staff that slipped into the postseason with the second-fewest regular-season wins of any playoff staff in the wild-card period, clinching the best-of-three collection with an 8-4 victory in Game 2.
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For two straight days, the Dodgers principally appeared like the staff hailed as the preseason favorites to be World Series champs for a second straight yr, the staff with three league MVPs at the high of its lineup, the staff with a beginning rotation so deep that Clayton Kershaw was left off the wild-card roster. The Dodgers’ offense and beginning pitching have been greater than robust sufficient to overcome a tenuous bullpen, one which twice took breezy victories and needlessly injected moments of late-game stress.
But this was the Reds. This was the simple part. For the advancing Dodgers, a lot harder challenges await.
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Up subsequent come the proficient, rested, playoff-tested Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodgers’ opponent for a best-of-five division collection beginning Saturday at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies piled up 96 wins this season, received 4 of six towards the Dodgers and edged them in the race for home-field benefit and a first-round bye.
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On Wednesday, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts described the Phillies as a “very talented ball club” however insisted that he thinks the Dodgers “match up very well against those guys.” He contended that his squad could possibly be the sharper staff early in the collection, having performed two wild-card video games whereas the Phillies had the week off.
“Getting through the wild-card series kind of seamlessly like we did, I think we’re in a great spot,” he stated.
If the efficiency of the beginning rotation the previous two nights is any indication, the Dodgers will arrive in Philadelphia fists bared, prepared for a battle. In the wild-card spherical, the Reds have been unable to make Roberts pay for the choice to save Ohtani to start Game 1 against the Phillies.
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In their outings towards Cincinnati, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto each secured 20-plus outs, struck out nine-plus batters and surrendered 5 or fewer hits. That’s the first time in MLB postseason historical past, per OptaSTATS, {that a} staff’s starters have completed that in back-to-back video games.
Yamamoto was particularly resilient Wednesday after the Reds loaded the bases with no one out and the Dodgers main by a single run in the high of the sixth. He caught a break when Austin Hays’ one-hop liner discovered Mookie Betts’ glove at shortstop and Betts astutely threw house to drive out the third-base runner. Then Yamamoto locked in and struck out each Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz on sharp curveballs under the zone.
Through an interpreter, Yamamoto stated postgame that he anxious he was “throwing too many curveballs” throughout that sequence, however he stated he trusted catcher Ben Rortvedt. Only after De La Cruz checked his swing however couldn’t maintain up at strike three did Yamamoto concede, “That was a good call.”
And as deep as the Dodgers’ beginning rotation is, so is their lineup.
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Just two video games into this postseason, October heroes of the previous are heating up, most notably Kiké Hernandez. After the Dodgers fell behind in the first inning on two unearned runs made doable by a Teoscar Hernandez error, Kiké helped his staff get well. In the fourth, he drove in the tying run with a ringing double in the hole, then scored the go-ahead run on a Miguel Rojas single, pumping his fist as he stepped on house plate.
The Dodgers star who struggled most over the course of the common season has additionally caught hearth at the preferrred time. Betts had 4 hits Wednesday, together with three doubles, which tied a Dodgers single-game postseason file courting to 1953.
“Better late than never,” he stated afterward with a smile. “I went through arguably one of the worst years of my career. But I think it really made me mentally tough. So now there’s just a different level of focus. And it’s not really on myself. It’s more on winning the game.”
In the Game 2 victory, almost everybody in the lineup contributed. Teoscar Hernandez hit a two-run double. Rojas and Rortvedt had two hits apiece. It’s no marvel that earlier than the recreation, Reds supervisor Terry Francona scoffed at the idea of intentionally walking Ohtani, who singled and scored a run.
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“You’re kidding, right?” he stated. “Have you heard of Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman? … You start walking people in that lineup, and you’re asking for trouble.”
But if there’s one motive for concern heading into the Philadelphia collection, it’s the similar one which plagued the Dodgers all through the second half. Their relievers can’t be trusted to defend huge leads, not to mention small ones in high-leverage conditions.
On Tuesday in Game 1, relievers Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer frittered away much of an eight-run lead over the course of a 59-pitch top of the eighth inning. Boos rained down from the Dodger Stadium crowd after Dreyer walked in a run, the Reds’ third of the body, to enable Cincinnati to ship the tying run to the on-deck circle.
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A sample emerged in Game 2, when Roberts known as starter Emmet Sheehan in the high of the eighth with the Dodgers main 8-2. Sheehan walked the bases loaded, then yielded a base hit and a sacrifice fly.
When Sheehan almost hit Will Benson with a pitch on an 0-2 rely, Roberts had seen sufficient. He pulled Sheehan in the center of the at-bat and introduced on Vesia, who sandwiched two strikeouts round a stroll to wriggle out of the inning with an 8-4 lead intact.
Why didn’t Roberts enable Sheehan to end pitching to Benson? The skipper conceded postgame that Sheehan “wasn’t sharp” and stated he felt higher about Vesia towards the right-handed hitters on deck. Would Roberts hesitate earlier than turning to Sheehan in future postseason video games? No, the supervisor gave Sheehan his vote of confidence.
“I believe in him,” he stated. “I really do.”
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The one pitcher who earned Roberts’ belief on this wild-card sweep was starter-turned-reliever Roki Sasaki, who finished off the Reds with a pair of strikeouts in the ninth inning Wednesday. Asked if Sasaki could be the Dodgers’ postseason nearer shifting ahead, Roberts gave a non-answer however acknowledged, “I don’t think the moment is going to be too big for Roki.”
With the Phillies looming, Sasaki will want to be prepared for greater moments as October rolls on. For the Dodgers, the Reds have been a pace bump.
Now comes the hard part.