The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Dodgers take 2-1 Series lead
ARLINGTON,TEXAS» Walker Buehler was dominant for Los Angeles. Just like Orel Hershiser during the Dodgers’ last title run.
Buehler struck out 10 in six innings in a pulsating performance, and the Dodgers beat the Rays, 6-2, on Oct. 24 for a 2-1 World Series lead.
Justin Turner homered in the first inning against a surprisingly hittable Charlie Morton, who was chased in the fifth.
Austin Barnes, the Dodgers’ No. 9 hitter and catcher, added a sixth-inning homer against John Curtiss and became just the second player to drive in runs with both a homer and a sacrifice bunt in the same Series game.
L os A n geles overwhelmed Tampa Bay in all phases, leaving the Rays’ scuffling offense with a .206 average and 11 runs in the Series.
Julio Urías, a hard-throw
THE SCORE DODGERS 6, RAYS 2
ing Mexican left-hander in a Dodgers lineage dating to Fernando Valenzuela, starts Game 4 on Saturday night for the Dodgers, while the Rays string together several relievers that include Ryan Yarbrough.
Thirty-eight of 59 previous teams that won Game 3 for a 2-1 lead went on to take the title.
Justin Turner and Austin Barnes homered for the Dodgers, who have outhomered the Rays 7-4 in the Series and opponents 25-16 in the postseason. Barnes also drove in a run with a squeeze, the second player with RBIs on a bunt and home run in a Series game behind Héctor López of New York Yankees in Game 5 of 1961.
Steely-eyed like Hershiser, who won MVP honors of the 1988 Series, Buehler has supplanted Clayton Kershaw as the Dodgers’ ace. He allowed three of Tampa Bay’s four hits and walked one.
The 26-year-old righthander has allowed one run in 13 Series innings that include seven scoreless in Game 3 against Boston two years ago. He improved to 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in four postseason starts that include the win over Atlanta in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series last weekend.
“I’ve taken the failures that I’ve had and tried to learn from them a little bit,” Buehler said. “Obviously our team gave me a cushion early so I could be aggressive.”
He started 15 of 21 batters with strikes and threw strikes on 67 of 93 pitches. Buehler didn’t allow a hit until Manuel Margot’s oneout double in the fifth.
Willy Adames then drove in Margot with another double.
Tampa Bay’s only other hit off him was Austin Meadows’ leadoff single in the sixth.
“You can see the fastball just pop through the zone,”
Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Other than a few breaking balls here or there, it was very much a there it is, hit it approach. You totally understand and appreciate why he’s so talented. He’s got a really special fastball that gets on hitters and commands it well.”
Rays batters were kept off balance by his mix of 59 four-seam fastballs, 14 knuckle-curves, 12 sliders and eight cut fastballs.
He became the f irst pitcher in the Series with 10 or more strikeouts in six or fewer innings, part of analytic changes in modern baseball that have led to shorter starter outings in an era of vastly increased whiffs.
“That might have been the best I’ve ever seen him,” Barnes said.
Blake Treinen and Brusdar Graterol followed with a scoreless inning apiece. Kenley Jansen gave up Randy Arozarena’s recordtying eighth homer of the postseason before closing out the four-hitter.