Dodgers beat Braves, will face Rays in World Series
Cody Bellinger, National League’s reigning Most Valuable Player, hits seventh inning home run to send Dodgers into World Series
TARLINGTON, Texas he Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated as Cody Bellinger’s drive soared deep into the Texas night. Bellinger flung his bat off to the side and strutted up the first-base line.
All the way to the World Series. Bellinger hit a tiebreaking solo homer in the seventh inning, and the Dodgers advanced to the Fall Classic for the third time in four years by topping the Atlanta Braves 4-3 in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series on Sunday night.
“This year is our year,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Bellinger, the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2019, connected an inning after Kiké Hernández became the first pinch hitter with a game-tying or go-ahead homer in a winner-take-all-game. His homer tied it at 3 and, like Bellinger’s, came on the eighth pitch of the at-bat.
The Dodgers, who matched an LCS record with 16 homers, overcame a 3-1 series deficit by winning three consecutive games when facing elimination for only the second time in their storied history.
“Defensively, pitching, game-calling, planning, everything. we grinded all the way through this series,” said shortstop Corey Seager, who was named NLCS MVP after bashing a record five homers in the series. “We’re glad to be on top.”
After winning both their NL Division Series and the NLCS in the new $1.2 billion Globe Life Field, the Dodgers get to stay in place for the World Series. Game 1 against the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays is Tuesday night.
The Dodgers again will try to win their first World Series title since 1988. They lost Game 7 at home three years ago to to the Houston Astros, and then lost in five games to the Boston Red Sox in 2018 when Mookie Betts was the AL MVP and playing against Los Angeles.
Tampa Bay’s win in Game 7 of the ALCS late Saturday night wiped out the chance for an October rematch with the Astros, whose 2017 World Series victory over the Dodgers has been heavily tarnished by the revelations of Houston’s sign-stealing tactics that season.
Betts, the first-year Dodger signed for 12 more years, made another incredible defensive play, {a}robbing NL MVP candidate Freddie Freeman of a solo homer in the fifth.
Julio Urias, the fifth Dodgers pitcher, retired the last nine batters for his fourth win in four appearances this postseason. The 24-year-old righthander, already in his fourth postseason, has a 0.57 ERA in these playoffs.
The massive shot to right by reigning NL MVP and 2018 NLCS MVP Bellinger came on a 94-mph sinker after fouling off three pitches in a row by Chris Martin, the fifth Braves pitcher who started the seventh with strikeouts of Max Muncy and Will Smith. Hernández led off the sixth with a 424-foot drive to left-center off A.J. Minter.
Dansby Swanson homered for Atlanta, which hasn’t been to the World Series since 1999.
Before the late drama, it was the first winner-take-all game in postseason history matching rookie starters.
The Dodgers scored twice in the third to tie it at 2, the first runs allowed by Ian Anderson in his four postseason starts — the 22-year-old right-hander started only six games for Atlanta in the regular season. His scoreless streak of 17⅔ innings was the third-longest to start a postseason career.