LOS ANGELES — Nobody was hotter than the Cardinals as they thundered down the stretch of the 2021 season. St. Louis gained 17 video games in a row at one level, setting a franchise file and streaking into the postseason.
But with the embers nonetheless scorching from a extremely entertaining National League wild-card recreation right here in Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night time, Chris Taylor’s bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out, two-run homer that despatched the Dodgers to a heart-thumping 3-1 victory served as a reminder that the Dodgers had been simply as sizzling within the season’s remaining months.
While making an attempt to chase down San Francisco and keep away from the embarrassing chance of a loss stamping them with one-and-done standing as an encore to their World Series title in 2020, they went 45-15 over their remaining 60 video games.
They additionally completed the common season by profitable their remaining 15 consecutive residence video games, a franchise file.
Wednesday’s win made it 16 in a row, and counting. The Dodgers will now open as dramatic a division collection as baseball has had in fairly a while on Friday in San Francisco, the primary time the ancient-rival golf equipment have confronted one another within the postseason since 1889, when the Brooklyn membership of the American Association, a predecessor of the Dodgers, confronted the National League’s New York Giants in what was then billed as a World Series.
Games 1 and a pair of of the division collection between the fashionable Giants and Dodgers are Friday and Saturday in San Francisco’s Oracle Park. Then the Dodgers will look to make it 17 consecutive residence wins in Game 3 on Monday.
“I think it’s great,” Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts stated shortly after the champagne sprayed within the clubhouse, one thing that was forbidden final yr throughout the top of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s just what baseball wants, the Giants and the Dodgers.
“It’s one of the greatest rivalries in sports, and it’s happening.”
The Dodgers completed 106-56 this yr, a second-place file that impressed quite a lot of debate. How unfair was it {that a} 106-win workforce, a membership with the second-best general file in baseball, might see its season doubtlessly worn out with one loss?
And what concerning the Giants? They went 107-55 and now should face the 106-win Dodgers in a division collection moderately than the National League Championship Series?
With speaking factors, perceived slights and historical past round each flip, it's a matchup that had folks arguing earlier than it even got here to fruition.
Farhan Zaidi, the Giants’ third-year president of baseball operations, was employed away from the Dodgers, the place he was the overall supervisor beneath Andrew Friedman. The intrastate rivalry is in full drive amongst followers. But there are additionally unmistakable bonds between the groups that shine by means of. They simply get placed on ice for just a few days each time these two face one another.
“I think it’s great for baseball,” Roberts stated. “They think a lot of the way we think as far as getting platoon and matchup advantages. There’s a lot of familiarity, which makes it fun, even more challenging.
“It’s going to be a great series. It’s going to be a fantastic series.”
The closest the West Coast variations of those historic franchises have come to assembly within the postseason got here in 1962, after they tied for first place within the National League and the Giants gained a best-of-three tiebreaker for the correct to advance to the World Series, the place they misplaced to the Yankees.
In 1951, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants had additionally tied for first and performed a best-of-three collection. The Giants gained that one as nicely, on Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard round the world.”
This yr’s N.L. West race was not determined till the ultimate day of the season. Over their remaining 29 video games, the Giants went 23-6 and the Dodgers 22-7.
“They beat us, but now we have the opportunity to get them where we want them,” stated the Dodgers’ Max Scherzer, whose gritty 4 and a 3rd innings Wednesday night time put the Dodgers in place to maintain their season alive.
The begin wasn’t classic Scherzer, however it was sufficient. His command was not as sharp as typical and, after giving up a first-inning run, he stated he was “on pins and needles” at each flip.
The Cardinals had struck shortly when the leadoff man Tommy Edman roped a base hit to proper, stole second, moved to 3rd on a fly ball after which raced residence on a wild pitch.
The Dodgers tied it at 1-1 when Justin Turner led off the fourth by launching a dangling, 75-mile-per-hour Adam Wainwright curveball into the left-field seats.
It stayed at 1-1 over the course of 5 innings, by means of 9 mixed reduction pitchers, a number of pinch-hitters and two beginning pitchers — Scherzer (4 and a 3rd innings, one run, three hits, three walks and 4 strikeouts) and Wainwright (5 and a 3rd innings, one run, 4 hits, two walks, 5 strikeouts) — reluctant to depart the sport when their managers signaled to the bullpen.
“I don’t think it was the most popular decision, but it probably made for good TV,” St. Louis Manager Mike Schildt quipped.
The capability crowd of 53,193 spent a lot of the 4-hour-15-minute recreation on its toes hoping to will the Dodgers to victory. Then, within the backside of the ninth, Cody Bellinger, a former winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award who has struggled badly all season, labored a stroll from a 2-2 rely towards the lefty reliever T.J. McFarland to set the stage for Taylor, who had entered the sport within the seventh inning.
Taylor had additionally been struggling, batting solely 7 for 65 over his previous 25 video games.
“Obviously it’s a little different not starting,” Taylor stated. “I was trying to stay ready off the bench, and I knew there was a chance I was going to come in knowing the way we operate.”
In the dugout, with Bellinger on the plate and Taylor within the on-deck circle as the specter of additional innings loomed, Scherzer was standing subsequent to reliever Joe Kelly.
“I seemed and Joe and I stated, ‘I think Belly is going to get on here and C.T. is going to hit a home run,” Scherzer said, noting that “I actually had a vision for him right there. I’ve performed with him, I’ve confronted him, and I believed it was the correct man for the correct spot.”
On a 2-1 rely, Taylor unloaded on an 88-m.p.h. slider from Cardinals reliever Alex Reyes. It appeared like a rifle shot within the night time, and as quickly because the ball left the bat there was little doubt that it was a game-winner.
The Dodgers exploded out of their dugout and Dodger Stadium shook with noise. An enormous blue mob met Taylor at residence plate in celebration and, after a number of minutes and a while spent pumping his arms to lift the extent of crowd noise even greater, Roberts discovered Taylor and raised one among his arms over his head like a heavyweight champion.
It was becoming, not just for Taylor however for this workforce and the collection it's about to play. In 146 years of National League baseball, solely 4 groups had extra wins than this yr’s 107-55 Giants. A file that stellar is what it took to unseat the Dodgers from a string of eight straight N.L. West titles. And even at that, the Dodgers practically chased them down.
Roberts stated earlier than the sport that dropping the division had induced him to lose a guess with the previous San Francisco supervisor Bruce Bochy, a detailed pal.
“He had the Giants, I had the Dodgers,” Roberts stated. “I lost a dinner and a nice bottle of Bordeaux.”
But with the Cardinals eradicated and the Dodgers getting yet another scrumptious crack on the Giants, Roberts was requested late Wednesday night time if he now would ask Bochy to go double or nothing.
“Yes I am,” Roberts stated, grinning. “I’m going to shoot him a text tonight. I am, yeah. We’re going to go double or nothing for the series.”
