Seeking a Hollywood ending
Dodgers, Astros battle for roles as MLB’s leading men
LOS ANGELES — Kenley Jansen blew a 94-mph fastball past Carlos Beltran to wrap up a six-out save Tuesday night, and Dodger Stadium roared with equal elements of excitement and anticipation.
This World Series has just been too good to go anything less than seven games.
The Dodgers and the Astros played for a championship Wednesday night, wrapping up two outstanding seasons in Game 7 — the biggest stage in North American team sports. Two 100-win teams played a winner-take-all finale to the baseball season for the first time since 1931.
For the fourth time in seven years, the Fall Classic went to Game 7. It’s the 39th time since baseball adopted a best-of-seven World Series format and the first time it has happened in back-toback seasons since 2001-02.
“You dream about that as a kid,” said outfielder Joc Pederson, whose third home run in four games helped the Dodgers win Game 6.
The Dodgers and Astros have played one of the most memorable postseason series in recent history. And Wednesday night they got a chance to top the finale of last year’s World Series.
Just a year ago, the Cubs ended their 107-year championship drought by winning a 10-inning thriller in Game 7. The Cubs got extrainning RBIs from Series most valuable player Ben Zobrist and Miguel Montero in a landmark victory over the Indians, whose own drought reached 68 years last fall.
Another drought ended Wednesday as Dodger Stadium hosted the first World Series Game 7 in its history.
The Astros hadn’t won a title in 56 seasons of existence, while the Dodgers hadn’t raised the trophy in 29 years.
The Astros, who began life as the Houston Colt .45s, had reached only one World Series, falling to the White Sox in 2005, and never won a game in the Fall Classic until this year. They moved to the brink of reversing a curse of sorts leveled in 2014 by the noted jinx artists at Sports Illustrated, who put them on the cover as “Your 2017 World Series Champs” in a story about the franchise’s rebuilding project.
The Dodgers won one World Series in Brooklyn and five more on the West Coast between 1959 and 1988 but hadn’t returned to the World Series since.
The Game 7 matchup of starting pitchers might have appeared to favor the Dodgers — but only to people who didn’t watch Game 3.
Yu Darvish, the Japanese star acquired from the Rangers at the trade deadline, was looking for redemption after turning in the shortest start of his big-league career in Game 3. With his famed slider doing almost nothing, Darvish couldn’t get through the second inning, giving up four runs on six hits while getting only five outs.
The Astros countered with All-Star right-hander Lance McCullers Jr., whose victory in Game 3 was his first win in 12 appearances since June.
But McCullers had been in solid form in his last two appearances, including his outstanding four-inning save in Game 7 of the AL Championship Series against the Yankees.
Both starters had plenty of help available at the first sign of trouble, however.
Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw expected to pitch as a reliever in Game 7 after a short Game 5 start Sunday. Alex Wood, the 16-game winner who pitched one-hit ball into the sixth inning of Game 4 on Saturday, also was ready to go.
And closer Kenley Jansen, who picked up his smooth six-out save in Game 6, was eager to get on the mound one last time.
The entire Astros pitching staff was available behind McCullers, including Dallas Keuchel and possibly even Game 6 starter Justin Verlander.