LOS ANGELES — In the final inning of Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Thursday, a 3-1 victory that put the Los Angeles Dodgers one victory away from another pennant, Mookie Betts conjured up visions of Derek Jeter.
Betts stepped to his right, backhanded an Andrew Vaughn grounder, jumped and threw to first to complete a play made iconic by the former New York Yankees captain. A converted right fielder, Betts had never played the game and almost never thought about trying it. The fact that he dared to do so at that time speaks volumes not only about his confidence in his position, but also about the belief his team carried throughout the month of October.
The Dodgers, coming off a disappointing 93-win regular season, have played in nine playoff games this year and lost just once. They beat the Cincinnati Reds in the wild-card round, knocked off the star-laden Philadelphia Phillies in four games in the Division Series and have since held the No. 1 seed Milwaukee Brewers to three runs in 27 innings in this NLCS. With a win in Friday’s Game 4 – with Shohei Ohtani back on the mound – the Dodgers will return to the World Series after a sweep.
These days, everything seems easy.
“We have a lot of guys with experience and we know what it takes to win big games,” Dodgers infielder Tommy Edman said. “We have a lot of confident guys in the room, not in a bad or cocky way or anything like that, but the guys are very confident in their abilities. And that comes from having been successful in the past.”
Less than 12 months ago, the Dodgers did just that, leading a resilient group of relievers to their first full-season championship in 36 years. Now, behind a starting rotation every bit as deep and crushing as last year’s bullpen, the Dodgers are one win away from joining the 2009 Phillies as the first team to return to the World Series a year after winning it. Five more wins and they will become the first team to win back-to-back titles in a quarter-century.
“We’re standing,” Betts said. “But you know, like [former Lakers great] Kobe [Bryant] said: “The work is not finished. “So we have to keep going and keep pushing.”
Tyler Glasnow took the ball three days after Blake Snell blanked the Brewers in eight innings in Game 1 and two days after Yoshinobu Yamamoto spun nine one-run innings in Game 2, producing baseball’s first complete playoff game in eight years. The Brewers threatened early, as four of their first eight batters reached base, but Glasnow then cruised, striking out six of seven batters in the third and fourth innings and pitching in the sixth with just one run.
The most encouraging development followed. Glasnow walked Vaughn in the sixth, his pitch count already at 99, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came out of the dugout. He looked for 10 outs in a bullpen that had been a major problem all year and got them from Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and Roki Sasaki, four relievers who combined to allow just one baserunner.
“I think the thing about our guys is they’re battle-tested, and they know I’ve never lost confidence in them,” Roberts said. “They’ve never lost confidence in each other. So, given what they’re doing right now, I’m not surprised. We knew all along we were going to need these guys. And these guys are delivering, which is huge. We’re doing a great job preventing runs. And the bullpen deserves a lot of credit.”
The same goes for the Dodgers defense, which has been excellent in the postseason. That was evident again in Thursday’s second inning, when the Brewers tied the score at 1 and placed a runner on third with one out.
The Dodgers saw their infield drawn when Brewers shortstop Joey Ortiz caught a curveball and produced a sharp grounder to the left side. Max Muncy, the Dodgers third baseman who helped execute the memorable wheel play in Philadelphia in the previous round, made a sliding catch to his left, turned and threw a perfect throw to Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who applied the tag to get the lead runner.
The Brewers placed only one additional runner in scoring position for the rest of the game.
“It was a great moment,” Muncy said.
Another big moment came in the sixth inning. Jacob Misiorowski, the Brewers’ hard-throwing sensation, relieved opener Aaron Ashby in the first inning and stifled Dodgers hitters while pitching in the shadows. When Misiorowski caught Betts staring at a 99 mph fastball to the outside corner, it marked his ninth strikeout, the third in postseason history by a reliever. But Smith followed with a single, Freddie Freeman drew a walk and Edman produced what became the game-winning hit by lining a low slider into center field.
Misiorowski had thrown 73 pitches at that point, the most he had thrown in a game since September 19. Abner Uribe, who then allowed a third run to score with an errant throw, was ready in the bullpen.
“Abner didn’t throw the ball like he usually does,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “I had to decide who would be better in this match. Miz was the best player on the court for us today, and he was fantastic. I knew he was coming at the end because that’s his kind of pitch count, but in a match like this, I wanted to give him a chance to come out.”
Before those Dodgers, the 1999 Yankees were the last defending champions to win eight of their first nine playoff games and the last defending champions to take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series, according to ESPN Research. The Dodgers are also the last team since the 1996 Atlanta Braves – headlined by Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz – to allow just one run in four straight playoff games.
The Dodgers still feel like they can be better offensively — as evidenced by Ohtani going 3-for-29 since the wild-card round — but they have the look of a team that no longer believes it can be beaten.
“When the playoffs come, we all lean on each other a little more,” Vesia said. “One hundred and sixty-two games is a long season. Things go the way we want them to, things don’t go their way. But it’s a breath of fresh air when October comes around.”
