Taylor revives Dodgers with power
Third baseman hits three home runs to help send series back to Atlanta
LOS ANGELES—The Dodgers were deflated, decimated and desperate for one reason, any reason, to continue clutching to the fraying fringes of a season. Chris Taylor gave them three. Second inning, fastball, boom. Fifth inning, sinker, boom. Seventh inning, changeup, boom.
Heard enough? The Atlanta Braves certainly have.
Seen enough? The Dodgers certainly did. Hold the eulogy. Keep the lights on. Clear your weekend. This National League Championship Series lives.
Trailing three games to one and on the verge of elimination, the Dodgers used a historic three home runs by Taylor on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium to pound out an 11-2 victory and maybe tighten those Braves’ dark blue collars.
“C-T-Three! C-T-Three!” the crowd chanted. Unsettled, the Braves looked. “This is why you play the game ... These are moments we’re going to look back on for the rest of our lives,” said Taylor afterward. “It’s pretty cool.”
It’s also pretty legendary, as Taylor became the first player in major-league history to hit three home runs in an elimination game, which led to the first curtain call of his career.
It came after his third homer, in the seventh inning, Dodger Stadium shaking until the diminutive, bearded everyman took a baby step out of the dugout and took off his cap and waved. You could barely see him. He was hidden by his more famous teammates. It was absolutely perfect.
“Any time you do something cool, when you do it in Dodger Stadium, it makes it that much sweeter,” Taylor said. “For it to happen for the first time on this stage ... makes it special.”
The entire night was special for so many reasons. Struggling AJ Pollock added two home runs. Ancient Albert Pujols threw in two hits. Six Dodgers relievers threw 8 1 ⁄ scoreless 3 innings.
“After a while, it kind of got out of control,” admitted Braves manager Brian Snitker.
Just like this series? Maybe. After Thursday night, anything seems possible.
The Dodgers still trail three games to two and need to sweep both games in Atlanta on Saturday and Sunday to survive this duel and advance to their fourth World Series in five years. The odds are still stacked against them, as only 14 of 89 teams in baseball history have ever overcome the threegames-to-one deficit that faced the Dodgers entering Thursday.
The Dodgers continue to battle injury and exhaustion. It’s still a long-shot. But the Dodgers have won seven elimination games over the last two years, and there are three distinct reasons the Dodgers can pull this off, one for every time Taylor went deep.
First, the Dodgers have overcome that 3-1 deficit before, against this same Braves franchise, just last season.
Second, they’ll be pitching their two fully rested aces at Truist Park in Max Scherzer and Walker Buehler. Finally, well, Chris Taylor! His heroics appropriately occurred amid the screaming rises and drops of baseball’s eternal roller coaster.
Just last weekend, his baserunning gaffe doomed the Dodgers in a Game 1 loss. Yet a couple of weeks ago he hit the dramatic walk-off home run to give the Dodgers a victory in the wild-card game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
He picked a perfect time to keep the thrills going, finishing with four hits and six runs batted in while the Dodgers collected 17 hits one night after managing only four.
“You’ve got to take the lows with the highs. It’s a game of failures . ... Then there’s moments like tonight — that’s what makes it worth it,” Taylor said. “It’s definitely a surreal feeling for me . ... I never thought I was going to hit three homers in a game, much less a playoff game.”
The game ended with the usual massive cheers followed by thousands of unfamiliar sighs.
“Fans, the 2021 season is not finished yet!” Dodger Stadium public address announcer Todd Leitz proclaimed.
As easy as 1-2-3, Chris Taylor made sure of it.