Little things go a long way in making World Series a blast
Forget dingers, any real excitement comes with the ball in play, writes Barry Svrluga.
The most exciting play of this World Series involved a soft single to centre, two baserunners with a combined 450 feet of dirt between them and home plate and a baseball that was handled — or, you could argue, mishandled — by three fielders. Aaaaaah, bliss.
“It's hard for me to really understand what's going on,” said the man who swung the bat on that play, celebrity-for-a-day Brett Phillips, the last man on the Tampa Bay Rays' bench who provided baseball's buzziest moment of October on Saturday night with a walk-off hit — combined with a muff by centre-fielder Chris Taylor, a complete wipeout and bounce back from Rays runner Randy Arozarena and a far-too-hasty tag attempt by Dodgers catcher Will Smith that caused the ball to squirt away. So much to digest. Don't let it upset your stomach.
That play helped jolt this World Series back into the kind of baseball we deserve, and it continued Sunday night, when the Dodgers responded to a debilitating loss with a 4-2 victory in Game 5 at Globe Life Field. That result — on the back of left-hander Clayton Kershaw and three relievers — gives Los Angeles a chance to clinch its first championship since 1988 tonight. That alone is dizzying.
On Sunday night, the Dodgers got massive home runs from left fielder Joc Pederson and first baseman Max Muncy. Yawn. Give me every single other element from this game over those blasts.
“Just looking to honestly put the ball in play,” Pederson said, the cliché description of baseball's cliché accomplishment — the home run.
The ball in play, though, brings the more riveting moments. Rays first baseman Yandy Díaz roped a ball that forced Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts into the corner, a can-I-cut-it-off moment that became a triple. Tampa Bay left fielder Manuel Margot swiped second, forcing a throw that squirted away and eventually required a narrow play at third; Margot was safe. Margot then — inexplicably, in a game the Rays trailed by just a run — tried to steal home.
“We were all surprised,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, identifying an element that should be more prominent in the sport. But Kershaw wasn't napping. He nailed him.
The Dodgers scored their first two runs on a double, a single and a two-out single in the first — when Rays starter Tyler Glasnow uncorked two of his three wild pitches on the night. Pederson ran down a Joey Wendle drive to
the gap in the seventh. Centre-fielder Cody Bellinger raced in to grab a hanging Brandon Lowe ball in the eighth. Holdyour-breath moments, all of them.
The point: The bombs off Glasnow from Pederson in the second and Muncy in the fifth will make every highlight reel. But the ball in play, the runner on the basepaths — they both bring with them so much more possibility.
That vibe started Saturday night with Kevin Kiermaier on second, Arozarena on first and Phillips — a 26-year-old Floridian who grew up a Rays fan — with his first at-bat in 17 days.
Arozarena, of course, might have ended Game 4 with a home run. He already has set a record by hitting nine home runs this post-season. That result undeniably filled the air with possibility. But as much as it's a reflection of Arozarena's extraordinary October, it's quite frankly just a sign of the times — and a sign of these Rays. Headed into the ninth inning on Saturday night, Tampa Bay had scored 74 runs in its 18 post-season games. Fifty-two of them had scored on homers.
The home run is a fine play. Consider, though, the game can be strangled by all the power present — at the plate and on the mound. Both hitters and sabermetricians have discovered there is far more value in hitting the ball in the air than on the ground, so home runs are being cracked at a historic rate — 2.8 per nine innings in 2019 and 2.68 per nine innings in this pandemic-shortened season, the highest marks this century, which covers the height of the steroid era.
A home run leaves the yard in seconds, and the stress is over. On Phillips' single — or, for that matter, Díaz's triple or Margot's attempted steal of home Sunday — tension built. The plays were worthy of study, examination, extended breakdown.
To get a World Series worthy of the same, the ball must be put in play and stay in the yard, both of which defy the times.
On Sunday night, the Dodgers got massive home runs from left fielder Joc Pederson and first baseman Max Muncy. Yawn.