Dodgers - 001 002 000 - 3 4 2 Astros - 040 010 00x - 5 12 0The first five Astros reached base in the second inning and four of them scored. Yu Darvish (1.2-6-4-1-0, 49) threw 27 pitches before recording the inning's first out. That early rally was enough for Houston. And when Lance McCullers (5.1-4-3-4-3, 87) got into a jam in the sixth, Brad Peacock took over and pitched the rest of the way, allowing only one baserunner (via a walk) in final 3.2 innings.
Darvish allowed a leadoff double to George Springer in the first inning, but stranded him at third. Facing the bottom of Houston's lineup in the second, Darvish's luck was all bad. Yuli Gurriel began the inning with a long home run to left. (When he was back in the dugout, Gurriel made a racist caricature of Darvish; after the game, he said he "did not mean it to be offensive".)
Josh Reddick doubled to left and Evan Gattis walked. Marwin Gonzalez singled in one run and Brian McCann singled in another. Springer lined to second and Alex Bregman lined a sacrifice fly to center, giving Darvish his second out and giving the Astros a 4-0 lead. After Jose Altuve doubled to deep left, LA manager Dave Roberts went to the bullpen. He ended up using five relievers.
After watching his teammates bat around and score four times, McCullers went out and walked the bases loaded with no outs in the top of the third. But LA could not capitalize, as Corey Seager grounded into a 3-6-1 double play (scoring one run) and Justin Turner grounded to short. Joc Pederson doubled with one out in the fifth, but nothing came of it - and Houston added an unearned run in the home half.
Seager walked to start the sixth and went to third on Turner's double. After McCullers struck out Cody Bellinger, Peacock came in and got the next two outs, with Yasiel Puig grounding to second on the first pitch (a run scored) and pinch-hitter Chase Utley fouling to shortstop.
Peacock walked Andre Ethier with two outs in the seventh, but Taylor (as the potential tying run) grounded out to first. That turned out to be the Dodgers' last chance at coming back. In the eighth, Peacock struck out Seager, got Turner on a foul pop to the catcher and fanned Bellinger (who struck out in all four of his plate appearances). Puig struck out to start the ninth, Utley grounded back to the mound, and Yasmani Grandal flied to right.
In the three games, the Dodgers have had only 15 hits (six, five, and four). The Astros have 26 hits in the last two games, the two wins that have given them a 2-1 lead in the series.
Expecting these two teams to match (or somehow surpass) the unprecedented events of Game 2 is too much, but I hope they come real close.
IYI: MLB adopted the current 2-3-2 format for the World Series in 1946. Since then, the series has been tied after two games 34 times. The home team for Games 3-5 has won the trophy 18 of those 34 times (52.9%). ... So that tells us nothing!
Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel, commenting on Charlie Culberson's reaction to hitting a home run in the 11th inning of Game 2: "Culberson acted like he just won the World Series."
I'm surprised Keuchel would make such a dickhead comment, especially when two of his own high-profile teammates (Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa) ran out of the dugout during the same game, and danced around in foul territory like sugared-up kids whenever one of their teammates got a base hit. (In other words, when they hadn't done shit. At least Culberson hit a home run.) Anyway, give him a few more days - Culberson might be celebrating winning the World Series for real.
My money's with Darvish the Dog Rescuer. Dodgers 6-3.
9 comments:
Watching MLBTV via Roku, I see exactly ZERO commercials during the entire baseball season. Except, of course, for the ones Fox shows on my fucking screen DURING THE GODDAMN GAME. But as far as the between-innings ones, none. However, I hear they have been bad. ... Dump cable and banish them from your world.
Maybe someday, for an extra few bucks a month, they'll provide a channel that only broadcasts the "sounds of the game" and eliminates the excruciating voices of Joe Buck and the other talking heads in the booth (I believe MLBTV provides this as a feed option?).
Not going to see much of this game as I'll be out tonight at a Halloween party. Honestly, given how the first two games went, I'm sorry to missing the action tonight.
Post:
After he crushed a Yu Darvish fastball for a home run to left field, producing the game's first run in the second inning, the Cuban native Gurriel was caught on camera in the home dugout making a "slant-eyed" gesture — historically derogatory toward people of Asian descent — and saying the word "Chinito," which means "little Chinese boy" and can be used in either an endearing or defamatory way, according to the popular website Urban Dictionary. Darvish is not Chinese. His mother is Japanese, and his father Iranian.
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The Astros did not come off very well either, cutting off reporters' questions about the incident. The Astros also refused to bring Gurriel into the designated interview room.
ELIAS:
Brad Peacock earned a save in the Astros' win in Game 3 of the World Series by getting the last 11 outs of the game. Peacock is the third pitcher in major-league history to earn a save of at least 11 outs in a World Series game. Madison Bumgarner earned a five-inning save for the Giants in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series against the Royals and Steve Howe finished off Game 6 by getting the last 11 outs of the 1981 Fall Classic in the Dodgers' win over the Yankees.
Lance McCullers earned a 12-out save in the Astros' series-clinching win over the Yankees in the ALCS. The Astros are the first team to have two saves of at least 11 outs in one postseason since saves became an official statistic in 1969.
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Besides Darvish's disastrous performance, is it just me or do the Dodgers' hitters look scared and demoralized?
I wasn't glued to the game last night, so I don't know. They could be pressing. How Game 2 went could certainly be demoralizing, but those guys would not have gotten where they are (MLB) without being able to shrug that kind of a loss off (for the most part). Also, Houston's pitchers are pretty good. I know well that a dominating pitcher can make you think your team has lost all ability to hit. If LA can win, then I think they'll be fine. But if they fall behind the Astros 1-3, they are screwed.
And this ESPN writer says the same thing I did:
Know this: Baseball players lose all the time. They handle this stuff better than fans do. If they didn't, they'd grind themselves into a pulp after each defeat, closing the drapes in their hotel rooms and refusing to crawl out of bed for the next game. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost 58 times in the regular season. Heck, they lost 16 times in 17 games during the most famous bad stretch of baseball since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
So the Dodgers understand losing.
It's a little more pressing, however, when you lose to fall behind in the World Series while playing a Houston Astros team that is now 7-0 at Minute Maid Park in the postseason. It's a little more pressing when you play a terrible game and miss on opportunities to come back. It certainly feels more pressing when you're playing in a house of noise where the energy level seems to boost the confidence of the home team, and knowing that even if you split the next two games, that still means you're down three games to two and staring at Justin Verlander on the mound for Game 6.
So, what do you? You simply look ahead to the next day.
"We had probably the worst fundamental game that we've played in a while and it was still a super close game," Cody Bellinger said after Friday's 5-3 defeat in Game 3. "And we're gonna take that into tomorrow. If we play normal Dodger baseball, we're going to go out and have an opportunity to beat these guys."
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I had Bellinger in mind when I posted that above. Then he proves me wrong! I love that.
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