Seager, Dodgers show grit
His third homer in two days helps Los Angeles force Game 7 in NLCS
Arlington, Texas Corey Seager homered again, Walker Buehler pitched six scoreless innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers pushed the NL Championship Series to Game 7 with a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves on Saturday.
The Dodgers avoided elimination for the second time in less than 24 hours, and now have a winner-take-all game to try to get to their third World
Series in four years. They haven’t won a championship since 1988.
“I’m still sort of recovering from this one, but already thinking about Game 7,” manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s what you live for.”
Max Fried took his first loss all year for the Braves, who were trying to celebrate manager Brian Snitker’s 65th birthday with the franchise’s first World Series since 1999. But the young lefty worked into the seventh without allowing another run after L.A.’S three-run first.
“Shoot, we’ll go out there and let ’er fly. A Game 7 is another baseball game,” Snitker said.
Game 7 is Sunday night, with Roberts staying quiet about his starter and the Braves going with a rookie from Shenendehowa, Ian Anderson, who has thrown 152⁄ scoreless
3 innings in his three postseason starts. L.A. could go with Tony Gonsolin or give the ball to Clayton Kershaw on short rest.
Justin Turner also homered for the NL West champions, and Kenley Jansen threw a six-pitch ninth for his 18th career postseason save.
It was Jansen’s first save chance in five appearances since closing out the Dodgers’ first playoff win this season in the wildcard round. He struck out the side on 12 pitches in Friday night’s 7-3 win.
Fried allowed only two homers in his 11 starts while going 7-0 during the regular season, but L.A. went deep twice in three pitches in the first.
Seager pulled a towering shot to right on a 73mph curveball, and Turner connected on a 93-mph sinker that went 418 feet to straightaway center. Max Muncy walked and scored after back-to-back singles by Will Smith and Cody Bellinger.
Seager, who homered twice in Game 4 on Friday night, has NLCS records with five homers and 11 RBIS. His six homers overall are already a Dodgers
postseason record.
Fried allowed eight hits while striking out five and walking four.
Mookie Betts, the 2018 AL MVP and first-year Dodger, made a leaping catch against the rightfield wall to end the fifth. While it wouldn’t have been a homer, it robbed Marcell Ozuna of extra bases, and the Braves a likely run.
Buehler threw 65 of his 89 pitches for strikes, allowing seven hits while striking out six without a walk. After Atlanta loaded
the bases with three singles in a row to start the top of second — the last hit by his Vanderbilt roommate Dansby Swanson — the right-hander really brought the heat, with 10 consecutive fastballs to get out of the jam.
With Buehler out of Saturday’s game, Nick Markakis greeted Blake Treinen with triple to right leading off of the seventh and came home on a one-out double by Ronald Acuna Jr.
The 14 homers by Los Angeles are tied for the
most in an NLCS, and two behind the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays for the most in any LCS.
Only once before have the Dodgers won three consecutive potential elimination games to take a series. That was in the best-of-five NL Division Series in 1981. They won the World Series that year.
Gonsolin started Game 2 after Kershaw was scratched because of back spasms and whiffed seven but allowed five runs in
41⁄ innings. Kershaw
3 pitched Game 4 Thursday.