Dodgers on a roll that started in S.F.
The Dodgers have nice momentum heading into the National League Championship Series, and the Giants can say they played a role.
Fresh off a Division Series smackdown of Atlanta, the Dodgers have won seven of eight while outscoring opponents 53-17, and it all started two Friday nights ago when Madison Bumgarner was outpitched by Hyun-Jin Ryu.
The Dodgers arrived in San Francisco to conclude their regular season after losing consecutive games in Arizona, and one more loss, in retrospect, would have turned them into a wild-card team. But the Dodgers won the opener and scored a combined 25 times Saturday and Sunday to complete a sweep and force a onegame tiebreaker with the Rockies for the division title, which the Dodgers won.
The one-sided Division Series ended with a third Champagne party, and the Dodgers are shooting for two more, which would be achieved with one more World Series victory than last year when Houston beat them in seven games.
On several fronts, this is a deeper, more experienced roster, and it was clear to anyone attending the three games at AT&T Park that the Dodgers have a lot going for them, not the least of which is power.
They hit a league-leading 235 regular-season home runs (six in the final weekend) and have eight in the postseason — no playoff team has more. Of the 20 runs they scored in the Division Series, 14 came on homers. So, no, the Dodgers don’t give a hoot that their postseason average with runners in scoring position is .179.
Now, it gets tougher. The Brewers are even hotter, winning 11 in a row (including the final eight in the regular season) and featuring MVP favorite Christian Yelich and dominating reliever Josh Hader. Milwaukee finished second to L.A. in homers, but the Dodgers’ rotation gives them an edge.
The Giants entered their final series with a chance to be spoilers but were enablers. The one last bid to salvage an awful season failed. They saved their top starters for the end but got swept, and now the Dodgers are feeding off the momentum they built in their visit to AT&T.