Monday is a scheduled off-day between the second and third games of the of the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, should the Dodgers overcome a 2-1 deficit against the Mets in their Division Series and advance to the next round. The Dodgers and New York Mets will play Thursday, with the winning team getting the Chicago Cubs and the losing team clearing out lockers for the winter.
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Fittingly, the Dodgers’ season could either be prolonged or end on back-to-back appearances by Kershaw and Greinke, whose arms propelled them to a third straight NL West title and a franchise-record third straight playoff appearance.
“We’ve tried to preach for five years here that the job of a pitcher is to be an athlete, to be a baseball player, not just be a pitcher”, Mets manager Terry Collins said last month. “It’s probably dead even, to be honest”, Kershaw said.
“As good as Zack is and has been the whole year, deGrom has been the same, so there’s really no home-field advantage when you’re facing a guy like deGrom”, he said. So when we’re able to split them, it gets back to a game that anything can happen honestly. Well, yes-and sorry. Matt Harvey started and wasn’t very good, just good enough.
The Dodgers’ major weakness this season has been its bullpen, so in the most critical of situations, why would you entrust your season to anyone else but Jansen?
Well, the opportunities are minimal against Greinke, who finished this season with a best-in-baseball 1.66 ERA, 225 ERA-plus and 0.844 WHIP. He allowed a two-out single to Juan Lagares in the fifth, but promptly struck out pinch hitter Michael Cuddyer.
Whiffing in their first attempt to clinch the NLDS on Tuesday, when Clayton Kershaw refused to issue a party permit for Citi Field, the Mets have slogged 2,500 miles back to Southern California in search of their invite to the NLCS.
A slow grounder to second by center fielder Enrique Hernandez forced Kershaw, but Los Angeles followed with three consecutive hits in a nine-pitch span – a single by second baseman Howie Kendrick, an RBI single by Gonzalez and a two-run double down the third base line by Turner – to give Kershaw more runs than he had in either of his previous two Game 4 starts on short rest.
“He’ll paint the corners”. They were very few chances tonight, so you wonder about Thursday. “So my plan is just to pitch as good as possible and hopefully it works out”.
Dodgers manager Don Mattingly admitted to “Here we go again” thoughts, and so did Ellis, who went to the mound.
Kershaw’s longtime catcher, A.J.
In fact, it was Kershaw who got the game’s first hit.
When the Mets devised their playoff pitching rotation, they did so with deGrom in mind for a possible Game 5. The Dodgers have 46 strikeouts in this series and have won 13 of their last 16 games when allowing three or less runs. He went seven innings and gave up only Daniel Murphy’s solo homer and two harmless singles.
Kershaw improved to 1-1 with a 1.89 ERA in a trio of playoff starts on three days’ rest.
Elsewhere detained, I didn’t get home until late afternoon, only to find my Kansas City Royals down 6-2 to the Houston Astros in the top of the eighth.
Clayton Kershaw can pitch in October.
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The video starts with a 2-1 count and Zack Greinke delivering a 93-mph fastball and then bedlam in the Conforto section. “He said he’d be ready”, the manager said. But it’s worth noting the Mets and Dodgers have a handful of pitchers who are pretty capable at the plate. The stakes are even higher Thursday. Hey, he’s not stubbornly sticking to “I only pitch my closer in the ninth inning” doctrine. “I think that will kind of be in my mind and I’ll go out there and just try to put up zeros”.
