Seager delivers when it counts
ARLINGTON, Texas — The last time the Dodgers were in the World Series, Corey Seager was stuck on the bench.
The shortstop’s 2018 season had come to a premature end months earlier, an injury to his ulnar collateral ligament requiring him to undergo Tommy John surgery.
So, instead of playing a key role in the Dodgers’ second straight pennant, he watched from the side, desperately missed by a Dodgers team that dropped the Fall Classic in five games to the Boston Red Sox.
“That was tough,” Seager said. “You want to be out there with your guys. That whole year was hard, not being out there and grinding through things with your guys.”
He continued, “That’s in the past. I really never want to think about it again.”
Despite Seager’s best efforts Saturday, Game 4 of this year’s World Series might have left the same effect.
Seager logged a playoff careerhigh four hits on the night. Three of them were rockets, leaving the bat at 96 mph or above. One of them even cleared the fence, a third-inning home run that temporarily put him in a tie for the most home runs in one postseason with his eighth of the playoffs (the Rays’ Randy Arozarena later went atop the list himself by collecting his ninth long ball of these playoffs).
Seager’s most important hit, however, stayed in the yard. It left the bat with an exit velocity of just 66.3 mph. It was a soft pop fly that, had it landed in any other part of the park, could have been caught with a tissue box.
Instead, with a runner at second and the score tied with two outs in the eighth inning, Seager lifted the ball into the perfect spot, a teardrop that nestled between a charging left fielder and retreating shortstop, a Texas-league single that put the Dodgers in front for good — or so he thought.
The unthinkable, of course, happened in the ninth, the Rays winning the game on a single that saw the Dodgers twice misplay the ball on the relay.
For a moment, the team looked like it was going to be one win away from earning a championship in the Lone Star State. Now, they’ll have to overcome a gut punch. Thanks to 2018, Seager is used to the feeling.
Saturday was a trademark performance from Seager, the 26-yearold who had a career-best regular season, won the NLCS’s most valuable player award and has continued his hot streak in the World Series.
His first time up, he got ahead 3and-0 before smoking a line drive right at the second baseman. That was bad luck. In every at-bat after that, he had the midas touch.
His home run in the third inning was a no-dobuter, a 411-foot blast to right field off Rays starter Ryan Yarbrough with two outs.
When Seager came up again in the fifth, right-handed reliever Peter Fairbanks had entered the game. He hit the first pitch, a 99mph fastball, on a rope to right. After advancing to second on a wild pitch in the next at-bat, Seager raced home on a single from Max Muncy, scoring again with two outs.
The Rays had taken the lead when Seager led off the seventh, this time singling on the second pitch of an at-bat against lefthander Aaron Loup.
Five at-bats later, he crossed the plate again on Joc Pederson’s pinch-hit single.
Then came the eighth, an inning that began with a Chris Taylor double but was on the verge of faltering after a failed Kiké Hernández bunt and groundout from Mookie Betts.
With the score tied, Seager fanned at one curveball from reliever Nick Anderson, laid off another, then fouled a third one back in a 2-and-1 count.
With two strikes, Anderson finally threw a high fastball that Seager could get.
The contact was soft but the result was perfect, the ball landing just over the head of shortstop Willy Adames to bring Taylor home for the go-ahead run. The lead, however, wouldn’t last.
This year, at least, Seager isn’t stuck in the dugout like in 2018. He’s been the Dodgers’ best hitter for most of this postseason, and will probably need to be so again over the stretch of a series that will last at least six games. Otherwise, his eighth-inning bloop hit Saturday might become just another footnote in a season to forget.