Dodgers built for elimination games
Dodgers with 106 regular-season wins, both with two playoff wins against each other, both with 109 wins total, both needing one more.
“I’m sure it will be a lively atmosphere,” said Giants manager Gabe Kapler in the biggest understatement in the last 131 years.
The Dodgers will throw their best young starter Julio Urías. He won the second game of this series.
The Giants will throw their best young starter Logan Webb. He won the first.
“They know us, we know them really well,” said the Dodgers’ Will Smith. “It’s just going to come down to who wants it a little more”
The stakes in this rivalry have never been bigger, and the drama of its narrative has never been richer, all of which explain why the Dodgers could hardly be more desperate Tuesday, jumping on the Giants almost from the minute they stepped into Chavez Ravine.
A run in the first. A run in the second. Two more in the fourth. Another in the fifth. Two more in the eighth. A dozen hits. Two homers. Two doubles.
The Dodgers ran through eight Giants pitchers like it was a spring training game. The fans caught the buzz and screamed like it was the World Series.
“Giants suck … Giants suck … Giants suck.”
“Mooookie … Mooookie … Mookie.” “C.T. 3 … C.T. 3 … C.T. 3.’’ You’ve could have almost seen the quick Dodgers surge and Giants stifling coming. You needed to look only at the starting pitchers.
The stadium rocked. The Dodgers rolled. Mookie Betts went deep. Smith went deep.
And Walker Buehler went deep enough, pitching brilliantly even though he was starting on only three days’ rest for the first time in his career, one of baseball’s best big-game pitchers once again embracing one of its biggest stages.
“Elimination game,” Buehler said. “I wanted the ball.”
Huge game. He dominated the ball. Buehler fought through 71 pitches across 41⁄3 innings, allowing
just three hits and a run before leaving to a standing ovation and the awe of his teammates.
The Giants, meanwhile, sent out Anthony DeSclafani, who faced the Dodgers more than any other team this season, and he had been awful, in six starts going 0-3 with a 7.33 ERA.
Yep. He was awful again. He lasted 12⁄3 innings, allowing two runs on five hits before some of the fans had even found their seats.
Face it, you knew the Dodgers were going to pound DeSclafani. And you knew Buehler was going to pound them back.
And if you’ve been paying attention the last several years, you just knew the Dodgers would figure out a way to send this sprinting for one last clash on the Bay.
After all, the Dodgers have fought through baseball’s cancel culture before, and more than once. They won an elimination game last week against the St. Louis Cardinals. They won three consecutive elimination games last October against the Atlanta Braves. They won an elimination game three years ago against the Milwaukee Brewers.
“These elimination things, we’ve learned it about ourselves a lot against Atlanta last year that we could do things like that,” Buehler said.
Do things like, two more hits from the lost Gavin Lux, two more hits from the rediscovered Cody Bellinger, good swings from all over a lineup that seemingly can’t wait for Thursday night.
“I just know when our backs are against the wall, we have a guy named Walker Buehler who can get us out of it,” said Betts. “Now Julio has to bring us home.”
For the Dodgers, home would be advancing to the National League Championship Series, home is deep in the playoffs, always deep in the playoffs.
For the surprising Giants, home might have just been making the playoffs, who knows?
“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,” Buehler 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.”
The Dodgers have been here many times before, and on Tuesday night it showed.
Many of the young Giants have not, and that also showed.
“The playoffs are all about momentum,” Buehler said. “A win like this for us, especially in the fashion we did, is huge for us going into the next two days.”
The two days will lead to one game that will mean only everything. Thank you, baseball, for this wonderful madness that is the Dodgers and Giants.