The Giants Killed the Dodgers. It Just Took Them a Week to Die.
Los Angeles overcame myriad injuries to push the Braves to Game 6 of the NLCS. But in the end they couldn't overcome losing Max Scherzer to a dead arm after he closed out the NLDS.
I did something new after the Dodgers got eliminated from the playoffs: I took a day to think about what went wrong before I wrote a word. That space (I think) has hopefully made what I’m about to write better (or at least more rational) than it would have been had I written yesterday.
Losing is painful. The Dodgers were favored over the Braves heading into the NLCS, but we learned quickly that decisions the team made to beat the Giants in the previous round had actually turned them into underdogs—or, as Mookie Betts said, “put them behind the eight ball from the start.”
If you’re a Dodger fan knowing what you know now, would you go back in time and not have Max Scherzer pitch the ninth inning of game 5 of the NLDS to close out the Giants? You’re allowed to pick a reliever to pitch the ninth inning of that one-run game and keep Scherzer on ice to pitch game 1 of the NLCS—but there’s no guarantee the Dodgers get there. Would you take that risk when the downside is getting your season walked off by your arch rivals? Or would you let Scherzer close for the first time in his career to beat the Giants and then effectively lose him for the next round? It’s a tough decision. And obviously, had the Dodgers known that pitching Scherzer there would cost them for the next round, they probably would not have done it. But they didn’t know that, so they pitched him. They won that day but lost the war.
The Dodgers spent six months chasing the Giants and fought every day to catch them. Had the race not been so close, they probably would have rested their starters on the final day of the season. If that had happened, perhaps Max Muncy wouldn’t have dislocated his elbow on a freak play at first base that day, ending his season.
It’s possible that if the Dodgers had finished 10 games behind the Giants but still captured the wild card they would have been in better shape to defend their title. Clayton Kershaw might not have pushed himself as hard to get back and re-injured himself. Joe Kelly and Justin Turner might have received more rest and not gotten hurt in the playoffs, too. The Braves beat the Dodgers to send them into a long winter. But it was the Giants who delivered the mortal wound. It just took LA an extra week to bleed out.
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With a battered Dodger roster, Dave Roberts needed to be almost perfect—like he was last postseason—for the team to go back-to-back. He wasn’t. I don’t know whose Idea it was to use Julio Urías to try to close out game 2 of the NLCS on short rest but it’s where this series was lost. The front office is involved in all postseason pitching decisions, so it’s not all on Roberts. However, if you talk to other managers around the league about Roberts they will all say the same thing. He is a good man they respect. But he has trouble deviating from the pre-game script and going with his gut when things change as the innings roll on in front of him. I understand the thinking behind using Urías there. After all, the team used him in relief last season to close out both the NLCS and the World Series and he was marvelous.
But last season was a different animal. Kenley Jansen was struggling, which is why Urías was deployed as a closer in the first place. The Dodgers bullpen this year was the best I’ve seen in my lifetime, and Jansen had been having his best season in years. There was an off-day after game 2. Jansen or Treinen or anyone else besides a tired starter should have been used in that 8th inning. Urías threw 185.2 innings this year. His previous career high was 79.2. He was pitching on borrowed time.
Walker Buehler was also toeing a tight rope over a moat with alligators nipping at his cleats. He had thrown a major league high 232 innings heading into Saturday’s game 6 start on short rest. The most he’d ever thrown before in a season was 195 innings.
If you had told me the Dodgers were going to lose Clayton Kershaw, Max Muncy, Justin Turner, and Joe Kelly all after October 1 with no ability to replace them and that Max Scherzer would only be able to pitch four innings with a dead arm in the NLCS I would have said the Dodgers had zero chance of making the World Series. That they came within two games of the Fall Classic is a testament to how hard they fought. This is a team that won four (!) elimination games in two weeks.
I know people want to blame the offense. But with the Dodgers’s season on the line in game 6 against Atlanta they were forced to pinch hit Steven Souza Jr. against Tyler Matzek, the Braves best reliever. The front office could have done ten million simulations when the season began and never landed on that possibility. Souza isn’t even on the roster if Muncy and Turner are healthy. Or if Edwin Rios had never gotten hurt. Or if Zack McKinstry had been as good as they thought he was going to be when they decided to let Kiké Hernandez go.
Repeating as champion is so difficult. The Braves are a fantastic team that have not played in the World Series since 1999. They deserved to go this year.
As frustrating as losing is, Dodger fans can find two silver linings to carry them until opening day: first and foremost, LA wrecked the Giants magical season. Full stop. Second, a World Series rematch against the Astros with only two healthy starting pitchers would have been a disaster. Houston would have rolled, and then their fans would have used it as scientific evidence that the Astros were the rightful champions of 2017 (they were not). Even if the Dodgers had somehow figured out a way to beat Houston, the next week of our lives would have been awful. The stress would have been overwhelming. The game threads you enjoy would have been hijacked by randos yelling at each other about 2017. This is not a future I wanted for any of us. After a day of reflection I’ve decided the Dodgers loss to Atlanta was like a mercy killing of a mortally wounded animal. In hindsight, as hard as it is to lose, the Braves probably did Dodger fans a favor.
Thank you Dodger fans for following along during this season. I will continue to write about the team every Monday through the offseason. It’s going to be a crazy offseason with tons of news as the Dodgers will have to make decisions about their top free agents including Kershaw, Scherzer, Jansen, Corey Seager, and Chris Taylor.
It’s the end of the Dodgers season but it’s not the end of my playoff baseball coverage. We’re going to do World Series game threads for Braves vs. Astros and I’m going to have special guests join us to answer any questions you might have. It’s going to be a good time! See you there.
I love how the 2017 Astros live rent free in the minds of the Dodgers fanbase. If yall we're the better team, you would have won. As far as I'm concerned, no parade = no championship. So enjoy your garbage COVID championship* from last year...a season so short that Manager Dave couldn't possibly burn up his pitchers like he did this year.
I am still peeved that the Dodgers signed Trevor Bauer. Your article back then warning the Front Office of his signing had a lot of "proof in the pudding" as they say. In turn, he was exactly who you said he was. His behavior, suspension, distraction ultimately impacted and cost the Dodgers WAY more than the Dodgers signing him. We could have spent those free agent dollars elsewhere. It's such a shame. I think Bauer gets a lot of blame for the season ending the way it did. I hope he never wears a Dodgers jersey again.