Dodgers seeking the heat

LA chilled in Boston but hoping to thaw bats at home

BOSTON — Fenway Park gave the Dodgers the cold shoulder.

No wonder they were California dreamin’ about the flight home.

“I think all the players are happy about going back to L.A., but obviously we have some games to win,” pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu said through a translator after Wednesday night’s 4-2 loss to the Red Sox dropped the Dodgers into a 2-0 World Series hole. “I think all the other players will be able to focus more and try to come back from this deficit.”

Fenway Park, at 106 the oldest big-league ballpark, is crammed onto nine acres in downtown Boston, the 37-foot-high Green Monster in left field a target for hitters and a terror for pitchers.

Dodger Stadium, a modern ballpark when opened in 1962 but now the third oldest, sits atop 300 acres in Chavez Ravine near downtown Los Angeles, surrounded by tiered parking lots with palm trees beyond the fences and the San Gabriel Mountains shimmering in the distance.

While Fenway is urban tumult, Dodger Stadium symbolizes the sunny California way of life.

“It’s going to be warmer, and hopefully our bats get hot too,” the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger said .

Used to the balmy breezes at home and hospitable weather in the NL West, the Dodgers hadn’t started a game all season in a temperature below 58. Facing a 53-degree chill at the beginning of the opener, the Dodgers lost 8-4. It was just 46 for Game 2, and the Dodgers’ bats were cold again. Their last 16 hitters went down in order.

No team has overcome a 2-0 Series deficit since 1996, when the Yankees lost twice at home to the Braves before sweeping three games on the road and winning Game 6 in New York.

“We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, man,” the Dodgers’ Matt Kemp said.

When the Dodgers opened the Series at home last year, it was 103 degrees. A more temperate mid-80s is forecast for Friday, when rookie Walker Buehler will start against Rick Porcello in an attempt to spark a turnaround. With a right-hander on the mound for the Red Sox, the Dodgers are likely to regain some of their power. Their top four home run hitters were benched in Boston: the left-handed batting Bellinger, Max Muncy and Joc Pederson along with switch-hitting Yasmani Grandal.

“We’re going to shuffle it up for Game 3, but it’s not because of necessarily performance, it’s kind of who the starting pitcher for those guys is,” Roberts said.

No matter what, the Dodgers will be unable to win their first title at home since 1963. But even if they take at least two of three to force the Series back to Boston, they would still have to win at least once at quirky, noisy Fenway.

There is no sign they can warm to the task.

ROB CARR/GETTY Neither the elements nor the scores agreed with the Dodgers in Boston, but they hope for different results at home.