Dodgers Stave off Elimination, Mets Punch Ticket to NLCS

A lot of baseball things happening!

Mookie Betts’ revenge tour continues apace (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Hi friends-

It’s not normal for me to make the same baseball player the cover boy of my newsletter twice in one week. But, when a player homers in the first inning of two consecutive road playoff games after I call him out for being lost in a salad spinner of suck, an exception must be made.

Mookie Betts went into Game 3 of the NLDS something like 3 for his last 42 in the postseason and everyone wondering why and how he caught the Playoff Ick. Betts promptly bounced off the schneid by collecting two hits— including that first inning homer. The Dodgers didn’t win that game, but Betts emphatically announced He Was Back.

And his no longer being an out at the plate wound up meaning more than usual when Dodgers’ first baseman Freddie Freeman was too banged up to play in Game 4.

I have no idea what the Padres were thinking when they announced Dylan Cease would start Game 4 on short rest for the first time in his career, except that AJ Preller loves to hit on 17. Except this felt like hitting on 19.

The Dodgers’ offense clobbered Cease in Game 1 when he was on regular rest. He gave up 5 runs on six hits in just 3.1 innings—including a three-run homer to Shohei Ohtani that effectively ended all the momentum the Padres had.

And actually, LA got to Cease during his last start of the regular season, too, tallying three runs and knocking him out after five innings in a game the Padres had to win to take the division.

So what I’m saying is: the decision to ask Cease to do something he’d never done before was not only dumb on its face against any opponent, but it was especially boneheaded against this Dodger lineup that had already beat him up twice in the last two weeks.

The only starting pitcher left in the playoffs that I would let pitch on short rest is Tarik Skubal—and that’s only if the Tigers were facing elimination. Otherwise it’s just dumb. Use your relievers! Use your number four starter until he starts to collapse! Do anything but what San Diego did last night!

The Padres made this horrible choice after losing Joe Musgrove last week to a season-ending elbow injury that will require Tommy John surgery. Musgrove’s arm exploding was a devastating blow, no doubt, made even worse by the fact that San Diego panicked and started Cease on short rest instead of countering the Dodgers with a bullpen game of their own, or letting Martin Pérez go until the wheels came off.

It didn’t work. Cease gave up three runs and recorded five outs, raising his career postseason ERA to 12.91.

I believe the Padres are the most talented team remaining in the playoffs. But maybe all the scars the Dodgers have accumulated from their recent postseason faceplanting gave them the edge here. This is an org that knows short rest does not work. Full stop. The Padres learned that painful lesson last night at the worst possible time, and it could cost the franchise their first world championship.

The Dodgers, of course, still had to execute in Game 4 to avoid execution.

And they did.