Happy ending (mostly) for champion Dodgers
Turner receives word of positive COVID-19 test during World Series finale
Arlington, Texas — No large dogpile, no champagne and a mask on nearly every face — the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated their first World Series title since 1988 in a manner no one could have imagined prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
They started the party without Justin Turner, too, after their red-headed star received word of a positive COVID-19 test in the middle of their clinching victory.
Turner was removed from Los Angeles' 3-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 on Tuesday night after registering Major League Baseball's first positive test in 59 days. He wasn't on the field initially as the
Dodgers enjoyed the spoils of a title earned during a most unusual season.
He returned to the diamond about an hour after the game, hugging longtime teammate Clayton Kershaw and sitting front-and-center for a team photo next to manager Dave Roberts with his mask pulled down under his bushy beard.
The 35-year-old Turner has been a staple in the Dodgers' lineup for seven of their eight consecutive NL West titles. A late-blooming slugger who helped reshape the game by succeeding with an upper-cut swing, Turner is LA's career leader with 12 postseason home runs, including a pair in this Series, in which he hit .364.
“We're not excluding him from anything,” teammate Mookie Betts said.
The end of a frustrating championship drought for LA — and perhaps just the start for Betts and the Dodgers, whose seventh World Series title was their sixth since leaving Brooklyn for the West Coast in 1958.
“I had a crazy feeling that came to fruition,” Roberts said. “It's just a special group of players, organization, all that we've kind of overcome.”
Betts bolted from third for the goahead run on Seager's grounder in the sixth, even with the infield playing in, then had a punctuating homer leading off the eighth.
“It was absolutely phenomenal. This team was incredible,” said Seager, also the NLCS MVP who set franchise records with his eight homers and 20 RBI this postseason. “We were ready to go as soon as the bell was called. Once it did, we kept rolling.”
Betts' 3.2-second sprint home was just enough to beat the throw by first baseman Ji-Man Choi, pushing Los Angeles ahead 2-1 moments after Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled ace left-hander Blake Snell despite a dominant performance over 5.1 innings.
Snell struck out nine — including the first time all season that Betts, Seager and Turner each struck out in their first two at-bats. But the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner didn't see the top three batters for the Dodgers again.
Randy Arozarena, the powerful Tampa Bay rookie, extended his postseason record with his 10th homer in the first off rookie right-hander Tony Gonsolin, the first of seven Dodgers pitchers. The Rays never got another runner past second base as LA's bullpen gave reliever-reliant Tampa Bay a taste of its own medicine while allowing only two hits and no walks over 7.1 innings.