CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES ROUNDUP
NLCS Game 7 Dodgers 4, Braves 3
ARLINGTON, Texas – Cody Bellinger hit a tiebreaking solo homer in the seventh inning and the Los Angeles Dodgers advanced to the World Series 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.
Bellinger 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.
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 1998.
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.
Corey Seager was named NLCS MVP after racking up five home runs and 11 RBI in the series.
Betts, the first-year Dodger signed for 12 more years, made another incredible defensive play, 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 right-hander, 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.
ALCS Game 7 Rays 4, Astros 2
SAN DIEGO – By now, every baseball fan has heard of remarkable rookie Randy Arozarena. They’re fast becoming familiar with his World Series-bound Tampa Bay teammates, too.
“You sit here and look at this group of guys, and I always say we don’t have a lot of household names, but at the same time, people are making a name for themselves right now,” outfielder Kevin Kiermaier said.
They kept doing that in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series on Saturday night.
Arozarena homered again, 36-year-old Charlie Morton was brilliant against his former team and the Rays silenced Houston to reach the World Series for just the second time.
The Rays will face either the Los Angeles Dodgers or Atlanta Braves in the World Series in Arlington, Texas, starting Tuesday night. Game 7 of the NLCS is Sunday night.
Right fielder Manuel Margot squeezed Aledmys Diaz’s flyball in his glove for the final out and fireworks burst overhead as the Rays began to celebrate the AL pennant in an NL ballpark, a byproduct of the pandemic-shortened season.
Arozarena set a rookie record with his seventh home run – a two-run shot in the first – and was chosen ALCS MVP.
“Randy Arozarena, I don’t have any words to describe what he’s done, what he’s meant to us this postseason,” manager Kevin Cash said. “For him to have a bat in his hand with an opportunity for a big home run, really, I think it settled a lot of people in the dugout. It certainly did me.”