Column: Dodgers could see another early winter if bats do not come alive
It sounds crazy, really. On Monday, the Dodgers could play their second and last postseason game this season at Dodger Stadium.
Two home games and out last October. Two home games and out this October?
Could be, unless the Dodgers’ bats return from another slumber party.
Clayton Kershaw did not lose this game all by himself, even if headlines here and everywhere else might sway you to believe that.
Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers had everything going for them until Game 1 of the NLDS started and the Arizona Diamondbacks dominated in an 11-2 win.
The 2023 Dodgers win with their bats, not with their arms, but the first night of the 2023 postseason bore an all-too-uncomfortable resemblance to their all-too-brief appearance in the 2022 postseason.
Those Dodgers finished 22 games ahead of the San Diego Padres last season. They averaged three runs off the Padres in four postseason games, and winter came early.
These Dodgers finished 16 games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks. They scored two runs off the Diamondbacks in the postseason opener Saturday, and even those runs did not come until the eighth inning.
These Dodgers lost Game 1 of the best-of-five National League Division Series, 11-2, and Arizona has Cy Young Award candidate Zac Gallen rested and ready for Game 2 on Monday.
“The irony is that last year we won the first game and then didn’t win a game after,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So hopefully that script flips.”
The odds might not be great when your team trails 6-0 in the first inning but, for the Dodgers, the odds are not that terrible. The Dodgers scored at least seven runs 60 times this year, or more than one out of every three games.
“I don’t think we came out flat as hitters,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “It’s always tough when you’re standing in the field a lot. But, other than that, I thought we put together good at-bats.”
The Dodgers collected four hits. After going five for 34 with runners in scoring position in last year’s playoffs, they went one for six Saturday.
They did all this against Merrill Kelly, who had started 16 games against the Dodgers — with 11 losses, no wins, and a 5.49 earned-run average.
On Saturday, Kelly pitched 6⅓ shutout innings. He won.
“Gotta give Kelly some credit, making pitches,” Roberts said. “We just couldn’t really mount anything together. I don’t know the correlation, really, from last fall to tonight.”
Said first baseman Freddie Freeman: “Kelly pitched a good game. They scored a lot of runs. We’ll try to flip it on ‘em Monday.”
Perhaps the top seeds in the playoffs now get too much time off. The Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves were the top seeds in the National League last year, too, and neither advanced past their first series.
On Saturday, the Braves and Dodgers — the teams that ranked first and second in the majors in runs, respectively, each lost. The Braves got shut out. The Dodgers got shut out for the first seven innings.
The Braves and Dodgers both played intrasquad games during their extended break, even inviting fans to attend in an effort to ramp up the intensity.
The Dodgers ace has had his share of bad postseason appearances, but nothing was as poor as what he delivered Saturday in a blowout loss to the Diamondbacks.
“You just can’t simulate real postseason baseball,” Roberts said.
Roberts made clear he was not pitching that as an excuse.
“This is the constructs, the structure of the playoff format,” he said. “And so for us to sit here and complain about five off days, it’s just not going to serve much purpose.”
If five days off are too many, that is an issue for the commissioner’s office, and for the winter. If the Dodgers do not start hitting in the next five days, another bitterly cold winter will be upon them, all too suddenly.
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