California showdown just what fans wanted
SAN FRANCISCO—Everybody expected a playoff series for the ages between the century-old rival Dodgers and Giants, and now they’ve got it.
Anything less than a winnertake-all Game 5 would have been a baseball travesty, leaving the sport short-changed on the October stage.
It’s the 107-win, NL West champion Giants vs. the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers for a place in the NL Championship Series against Atlanta starting Saturday night.
It all comes down to Game 5 on Thursday night, back at the San Francisco’s Oracle Park after the Dodgers staved off elimination with a 7-2 victory at home Tuesday night.
So you can see why San Francisco third baseman Evan Longoria would prefer a best-ofseven over this short NL division series before one of these two has to go home for the winter.
“I feel like this may also be like a series or a moment where baseball may have to think about restructuring the way that the playoffs happen — 106 and 107 wins doesn’t feel like a DS matchup,” Longoria said last week before his home run lifted the Giants 1-0 in Game 3. “I just feel like there’s two teams that win this many games, it seems early to match up us two.”
Mookie Betts and LA have played their share of winnertake-all games the past two seasons.
“We’ve had a lot of success here and in the past four, five, six, whatever years, and I think one of the biggest things is there’s teams that operate out of, ‘We want to get here,’ and there’s teams that it’s disappointing if we don’t get there, and I think we’re one of those teams that it’s disappointing if we don’t get there,” Betts said. “I think you sense that in there and you find a way to do little things that you might not do in the regular season. You find a way to impact a game.”
It will be season meeting No. 24 between these talented, even clubs, to be played at 24 Willie Mays Plaza — an ode to the Hall of Famer’s jersey number. San Francisco has won 12 and L.A. 11.
And now these teams that began playing each other in 1884 and have each won 109 times this year meet in an win-or-gohome game.
“I think it’s only fitting,” Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler said.
Game 1 winner Logan Webb, dazzling in his post-season debut, takes the ball again for the Giants.
“We knew it was going to come down to Game 5,” he said.
The Dodgers will go to 20game winner Julio Urías after the left-hander pitched the Game 2 triumph.
“Tomorrow when I take the mound the message is to give 100 per cent of me,” Urías said.
“This is what baseball wants,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said.
“I mean, I think, as I understand, all the series are done and so we’re going to be the only show in town. So if you have a pulse or you’re a sports fan, you better be watching DodgersGiants.”