Dodgers rally
Manager shines as L.A. digs out of early hole to take Game 1
LOS ANGELES — A playoff baseball game, to Los Angeles Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts, is a maze that must be navigated, even as the correct turns morph as the innings progress. He is the mouse sniffing the cheese, armed with a map that details exactly how to make each choice in each moment. It might seem unconventional. It should be convention.
Moves Roberts made last night, as the Dodgers opened the National League Championship Series with a 5-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs: lifted All-World left-hander Clayton Kershaw for a pinch hitter after just five innings; played platoon matchups so early and with such conviction that he brought in a reliever for a single batter in the sixth inning; had erstwhile starter Kenta Maeda get two outs in the sixth and throw one pitch in the seventh — also an out — before lifting him; and allowed reliever Brandon Morrow to hit for himself in the seventh inning of a two-run game.
But the motivation also set the entire affair up to hand the ball to his behemoth of a closer, Kenley Jansen, to retire the Cubs’ best hitters. Roberts cared not that Jansen would open this series by having to record the final four outs. He cared not that lefty Tony Watson recorded the first two outs of the eighth without issue. He wanted Jansen, so he went and got Jansen. Ballgame.
The Dodgers’ runs came on a double and home run from expressive right fielder Yasiel Puig, a dangerous righthanded hitter who feasted on Cubs starter Jose Quintana and reliever Mike Montgomery — both lefties. They got a solo homer from Chris Taylor off the first reliever inserted by Cubs Manager Joe Maddon — righthander Hector Rondon, who wasn’t active for the last round of the playoffs and hadn’t pitched in more than two weeks. And they got a sacrifice fly, a double and a mad sprint home — one that got Maddon ejected — from a player who, three days ago, had no idea he’d be in this series, 28-year- old journeyman Charlie Culberson.
Corey Seager’s absence thrust Culberson — who spent the bulk of the season at Class AAA Oklahoma City, playing just 15 big league games - into the lineup.
When Quintana worked over the Dodgers for four innings, allowing just a single and facing the minimum, Seager appeared to be missed. Consider what Quintana had endured. When the Cubs left Washington after outlasting the Nationals in Thursday night’s epic fifth game of their division series, the team’s plane was diverted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, because of a medi- cal issue involving a passenger. That passenger was Quintana’s wife, who was removed from the plane while the entire organization spent five hours on the tarmac.
Quintana remained behind in New Mexico while the Cubs trudged forward. Quintana didn’t arrive in Los Angeles until Friday evening, and the Cubs had to talk to him about whether he was ready to pitch.
“As a human being, you’re concerned for other human beings,” Maddon said. “. . . Everything seems to be well. Q got his rest.”
But he did not survive beyond the fifth inning.