Bats have flailed, balls have soared, runners have sprinted, and still…
Nobody can score off the Dodgers!
The New York Mets came to town Sunday as the hottest team in baseball, unfurling all their magic and unleashing all their miracles and still…
Nobody can score off the Dodgers!
Thirty-three innings, four games, a boatload of potential rallies in the most crucial of October moments and still…
Nobody can score off the Dodgers?
Believe it, because the Mets believe it, just like the San Diego Padres were forced into believing it, even though it refutes history and defies description.
A Dodger pitching staff that was considered the team’s biggest weakness entering the postseason has erupted into its biggest strength, Jack Flaherty and two relievers combining on a third straight shutout Sunday to tie a major league postseason record with 33 consecutive scoreless innings while wiping out the Mets 9-0 in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium.
The streak dates back to Game 3 of the division series against the Padres, involves 10 different Dodger pitchers, and looks something like this:
000000000000000000000000000000000
“You can’t really put it into words,” Flaherty said.
The Dodger pitching staff has become zero heroes, and it’s hard to imagine this best-of-seven series lasting very long if the Mets can’t do the one thing you must do to win games.
That is, you know, score runs.
“ I think it’s just a collective effort,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts about tying the record. “Certainly the players that were involved in all those scoreless innings have been fantastic. I think defensively we’ve been very good defensively. … I think the coaches have done a great job of relaying the information and making it tangible and allowing for our pitchers and catchers to do a great job of sequencing… and the front office, just the information we get. I just think that how we’re preventing runs, it’s a complete team effort, collective effort.”
The torch was initially picked up Sunday by Flaherty, acquired at the trade deadline for precisely this reason, pitching in big games, acting the ace.
He retired the first nine hitters with only one ball leaving the infield. He then seemingly found trouble at the start of the fourth when he walked Francisco Lindor, then two outs later walked Pete Alonso.
Two runners on, two out, but no problem, as Flaherty ended the inning by inducing Starling Marte into a flyout to right.
There were seemingly more issues in the fifth when Jesse Winker led off with a single to right, then Jose Iglesias singled to center as Winker rounded second and slowed halfway toward third. But center fielder Kiké Hernández unsettled Winker by throwing behind him to second base, causing him to inexplicably stop, and he was eventually thrown out by Gavin Lux at third.
“Kiké’s heads-up kind of look — body going towards third and then throw behind the runner — just a heady baseball play,” Roberts said. “And that right there I thought took the wind out of their sail. You’re looking at first and second base, nobody out. I started getting the pen going right there. So to be able to get that out and get through that allowed Jack to keep going. That was a huge play by Kiké.”
Flaherty retired the next eight hitters before leaving the game after seven innings for reliever Daniel Hudson, who promptly walked Jose Iglesias and gave up a single to Francisco Alvarez.
Trouble? Against these hot Dodger arms? Again, forget it.
Francisco Lindor flied out to center and Mark Vientos struck out to end the inning.
Ben Casparius took over in the ninth and finished with another 1-2-3 inning that ended appropriately with a wildly hacking Marte strikeout.
The game ended in a roar, the stadium and its inhabitants rocking with energy that the Dodgers initially worried would be missing.
Before the game, the fear was that the Dodgers were in basically the same emotionally drained situation as in the 2021 postseason.
Back then, they defeated the rival San Francisco Giants in an emotional five-game series that drained the life out of them. In the ensuing NLCS, they quickly fell behind the Atlanta Braves, two games to none, before losing the series four games to two.
The Dodgers were the better team, but they admitted the Giants had required all of their mojo, they had lost their edge, and they had nothing left for the Braves.
Thus this year’s NLCS theme was formed.
Don’t let up
“I think the first thing is we’ve got to keep our fire and our intensity from the last series,” said Max Muncy before the game. “That is something that I’ve seen in the past where we’ve won a big series and then you move on to the next one and you almost kind of let your guard down a little bit.”
The Dodgers stormed into the night with the history lesson learned.
One figured it would be a crazy evening when Manny Ramirez led the Dodger crowd in cheers before throwing out the first pitch. He is the first ex-Dodger to be given that honor after being suspended for 50 games for using steroids in the form of a women’s fertility drug.
Turns out, the madness had only begun, creating a question that haunted the Mets like the Padres before them.
Will anybody ever score off the Dodgers?
