GAME THREE RECAP AND SOME RANDOM PLAYOFF THOUGHTS:
Showdown between the Rays top pitcher, Charlie Morton (Joe Buck will tell you over and over again that he’s absolutely great!) and Walker Buehler. As in most games, the Dodgers had several objectives: 1. get off to a good start; 2. run up Morton’s pitch count; 3. Keep Buehler’s pitch count down; 4. Keep the Rays off the bases; and 5. Score more
Showdown between the Rays top pitcher, Charlie Morton (Joe Buck will tell you over and over again that he’s absolutely great!) and Walker Buehler. As in most games, the Dodgers had several objectives:
- 1. get off to a good start;
- 2. run up Morton’s pitch count;
- 3. Keep Buehler’s pitch count down;
- 4. Keep the Rays off the bases; and
- 5. Score more runs than the Rays.
The Dodgers were successful in all five. Buehler flat out dominated, the Dodgers scored early, and often and the Rays hitters were effectively neutralized. One of the better Dodger wins, as they prevailed 6-2 and took a 2-1 lead in the series.
1st inning
Joe Buck let us know how great Charlie Morton is. While he is good and has had a nice post season, Justin Turner wasn’t all that impressed, as with 2 outs, he took Morton deep, giving the Dodgers the early lead. Muncy followed with a single, but Will Smith couldn’t figure out Morton’s frisbee curve and struck out.
Buehler retired the Rays in order on a ground out to first and two strike outs. He looked relaxed, in command and was throwing nice and easy.
2nd Inning:
Morton had a relatively easy inning, as he retired the Dodgers in order.
Buehler followed up his masterful 1st inning, with another dominant inning, striking out Choi and Margot and inducing Wendle to fly out to left. It was early, but he looked so good, that I found myself thinking that I may see a no-hitter tonight.
3rd Inning:
This was what has become a rather typical inning for the Dodgers. Barnes struck out looking, Betts struck out swinging and Buck reminded us again how great a pitcher Charlie Morton is. Seager then got hit by a pitch, which was followed by a double to left by JT. Muncy followed with a single to center which scored Seager and Turner. Will Smith ended the inning with a fly out to center field. 3-0 good guys at the end of three. Dodgers continue their masterful hitting with two outs. For those who think the Dodgers are not clutch, they have definitely shown themselves to be clutch in this series. I’m not sure this was the inning, but the announcers thought it important to remind us of how Morton shut the Dodgers down in the final game of the 2017 World Series. They even showed the Astros hoisting the WS trophy. Perhaps they forgot about the cheating scandal. In any event, it made me momentarily sick to my stomach.
In the bottom of the inning, Buehler allows his first base runner, with a one out walk to Kiermaier, who was then promptly erased on a double play grounder to third by Zunino. Turner made a great pick and throw to second on the play. Defense helps win games, and JT showed he still knows how to play a little 3rd base when needed.
4th Inning:
Bellinger starts off with a single to center. Taylor strikes out swinging, but Pederson singles down the right field line sending Bellinger to third. Apparently Pederson may have made it to second, but fell down rounding first. Other than what they told us, we don’t know what happened, because Fox doesn’t show us. Barnes then lays down a perfect safety squeeze, scoring Belli, with Joc advancing to second. Betts then singles to center, scoring Joc. Morton ends the inning by getting Seager to ground out to third. 5-0 Dodgers.
Buehler retire the side in order, with Meadows lining out to Bellinger, Lowe then, according to Buck, took a great swing but fouled the ball to the backstop. Apparently he didn’t learn anything from his great swing as he struck out swinging. Arozarena ended the inning by flying out to deep center. Buehler still looks very much in command.
5th Inning:
JT started with a strikeout, but Muncy worked a walk. That was it for Morton, as he was relieved by John Curtiss(who’s middle name happens to be Pickens). Will Smith follows with a fly out to right, and Bellinger strikes out swinging.
Buehler quickly disposes of Choi with a strikeout, but then Margot gets the first hit off Buehler with a double to left. Buehler then gets Wendle to strike out swinging. Unfortunately he hangs a slider to Adames, who also doubles to left, scoring Margot. The Rays are on the board. Kermaier follows with a grounder to Muncy to end the inning. Despite the run, Buehler still looks very much in command, although his pitch count is starting to rise.
6th Inning:
Curtiss is still pitching for the Rays. CT3 starts the inning by striking out. Joc hits a pop fly to third base. Then with two outs (naturally) Barnes gets the run back by hitting a homerun to left center. I read that it was the furthest ball that Barnes has hit all year (425 feet). Good for AB. The role player came up huge when needed. Betts singled to center, and stole second base. Seager walked, but JT ended the inning by lining out to center field.
Buehler allows a one out single to Meadows in the bottom of the inning, but he cooly strikes out the side, as Zunino, Lowe, and Arozarena all go down swinging. That’s how a shut down inning should look. Buehler’s night is finished. His final line 6 innings, 3 hits, 1 run, 1 walk and 10 Ks. Just what the Doc ordered.
7th Inning:
Lefty Ryan Sherriff comes on to pitch for the rays. Other than a walk to Smith, he retires the Dodgers with no damage allowed.
Treinen is out for the 7th inning and retires the Rays with relative ease as he strikes two. His pitches looked as good as they have in a while.
8th Inning:
Ryan Thompson is on to pitch for the rays and he retires the Dodgers in order.
Graterol comes on to pitch the bottom of the 8th and he retires the Rays in order on 8 pitches. Nice stress free inning for the Bazooka.
9th Inning:
Shane McClanahan is on to pitch the 9th for the Rays. Seager greets him with single to left, but he is stranded as the next 3 Dodgers fly out. McClanahan is a young lefty that can throw 100 mph. Impressive.
Jansen comes on to pitch the ninth. Meadows strikes out swinging and Lowe is retired on a lazy fly out to Betts. Arozarena hits a 3-2 pitch left out over the plate a long ways for a home run, but Choi ends the game with a fly to left. Despite the homerun, Jansen looked very good. His velocity was up as high as it has been all year, his cutter cut, and he looked relaxed. Whatever Charlie Hough and Rick Honeycutt told him must have resonated as he looks a lot stronger. If only they would give a call to Joe Kelly. in the ninth for the save. There are nervous fans throughout the Dodgers community.
Two wins to go, and 1988 will be a distant memory!!
Some Random Playoff Thoughts:
● Listening to Joe Buck is insufferable.
● It’s my opinion that one day, JT will be a manager, and a good one at that. He’s a great communicator and has tremendous baseball knowledge. In addition, the players appear to respect his leadership qualities. Perhaps the Dodgers could bring him back as a player/coach.
● This is the year for George Lombard to get interviewed for vacant manager positions. While I would hate to see him go, I do hope that he gets th opportunity to manage and that he is a successful manager for many years to come.
● Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin appear to be suffering from nerves. Being on the big stage in the World Series will sometimes do that to you. Despite their minor struggles, I am not ready to give up on them. They both have a chance to be really, really good.
● I know that hitting a baseball is a very hard thing to do, but it frustrates me to no end to watch a hitter strike out looking in the 8th or 9th inning. Game two had me very frustrated as the Dodgers struck out looking several times in those innings. You can’t hit what you don’t swing at.
● The game two home plate umpire needs to go on a n exercise program to increase his flexibility. It did not appear that he could bend over enough to see the low strike. He missed quite a few in the strike zone.
My take on “Me and Julio” with apologies to Paul Simon. It was very quickly written, so not my best effort. Hopefully, it doesn’t jinx Julio for tonight’s game:
Doc named him to start game four
fully rested and part of the rotation
When the fans found out they began to shout
hoping to begin a celebration
would he beat the odds
would he beat the odds
What the hitters saw
It was against the law
Young Julio looked down and he spit on the ground
when he hit his spot and shut them down
Doc said “oh they’ll never get to that boy
he’s got too much spin and determination”
Well he’s on his way
The Rays don’t know what he’s throwing
He owns the Rays
it’s just a matter of time
as he strikes out nine
Goodbye Arozarena, as he goes down swinging
That’s our young Julio
Three down and keeping them from going deep
That’s our young Julio
he’s in command
Whoa, in a couple days Dodgers will hoist the trophy
and the fans will sing with joy
And when the last out was made
Julio will be praised
Julio was all on the cover of Baseball America
And he’s on his way
The Rays don’t where he’s throwing
He’s just a strike away
so he’s taking his time
as he strikes out nine
Goodbye Arozarena, as he goes down swinging
Seein’ my boy Julio
Jump into Will Smith’s arms
Seein’ my boy Julio
Jump into Smith’s arms
Jump into Will Smith’s arms
Jump into Smith’s arms
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Discussion (190)
Disagree, not disagreeable
I am fortunate to hear the games called by Matt Vasgersian and Buck Martinez. It is just very relaxing. Matt, in my opinion, is a top notch broadcaster and Buck doesn’t overly analyze everything. They certainly seem to be impartial.
I agree, it was about as perfect a game as I have seen in quite a while. Good defense, clutch hitting and only 2 mistake pitches. I was also impressed with Choi’s defense over at 1st. He made 3 outstanding plays. Dodgers have scored 50 runs this post season with 2 outs. Yarborough pitching today as the opener for the Rays. He is a lefty, so Joc will probably sit and they run their RH lineup out there to start. Of course Muncy, Seager and Belli will still be in there.
Best Dodger game I have seen in years.
I am going to say this once more, and then I will not bring it up again. I do not think post season records should be lumped together. Players from the past are getting over looked for what they did when the only post season matchup, unless there was a tie for first, was the World Series. Manny Ramirez leads the list of post season homers with 29. 25 of those came in league champion or division champion series. Saying Turner tied Duke Snider’s record is ludicrous. On the biggest baseball stage, Turner is 9 BEHIND the Duke. Duke hit his in 133 at bats. Turner has 256. Ramirez is no where near Mantle or Snider in WS homers. I am not dissing what Turner has meant or done in post season play. Justin is a .250 hitter in series play, Snider was at .286. Snider drove in 26 runs in WS play, JT has 3. Granted, Snider played a lot more series games than JT. But it still does not mean that Turner is even close to being the hitter in the WS Duke was. Babe Ruth hit 15 WS homers, yet with all the brouhaha over post season stats he is almost regulated to an afterthought. Babe also hit .326 in WS play. It just gets my goat that they have stats and graphs and all these records lumped together. Seager has 7 homers so far in the post season this year. But the bulk of those came in the NLCS. That is where they need to be counted, not in total.
We are on our way to Reno to watch my granddaughter as my son and daughter in law have tickets for games 5-7 of the WS and are leaving on a jet plane tomorrow AM. Yes, I am jealous. It’s great to know people with pull and money.
Meant to say Turner tied Snider’s record.
Some thoughts on last night:
The Dodgers are played about a perfect baseball game last nigh in every element of the game.
* I absolutely love the safety squeeze and Barnes executed it perfectly. We have mentioned it many times here how it is impossible to defend. It is as effective as a suicide squeeze without the risk. Loved seeing Doc put it on. And then he homered. How cool is that?
* 2D2 mentioned the lack of flexibility by home plate umpires who can’t see the lower or outer portions of the plate. I would like to suggest that another way to get a better view of pitches is to scrap the “National League” positioning to the inside of the catcher based on the hitter where seeing the opposite corner and low and away is difficult. I would go back to the “American League” style when they had those balloon protectors and got directly over the catcher’s head. I think that give an umpire a way better view of the entire strike zone. When the ballon protector went away, so did that style. I’d bring it back.
* Mookie opened his stance last night a little bit. He’s usually very square.
* I love it when Buehler has his power stuff working. It’s “lets play a little good ole country hard ball, boys” and he dominates the top of the zone. See if you can hit it.
* Smoltz touched on Buehler’s longish stride to home for his height. Remember Tim Lincecum being a very long strider, like 7+ feet. That turns Walker’s 99 mph fastball into 102 in “perceived velocity”. For every foot of extension on the front side at release it equates to 3 mph to the hitter with less reaction time. 99 turns into 102 in perceived velocity. That’s why Tom House forever had pitchers doing towel drills to increase length on the front side.
* Smoltz commentates like every base hit is a mistake by the pitcher. He gives little credit to MLB hitters. Last night, the first hit off Walker was a double by Margot that was 2 baseballs inside. I don’t know how he kept it fair. While Walker missed his target it turned out to be a tough pitch to hit and typically taken. Plenty of great pitches are off missed location. Smoltz called it a pitcher’s mistake. I call it good hitting. Give MLB hitters some credit. They are there for a reason.
* Teams now run 100mph pitchers out to the mound like a Pez dispenser.
* Graterol’s lower half rivals Jerome Bettis. No doubt where that 100mph comes from.
* MLB is getting more and more like NASCAR with the logos and promotions. They cut back from the extra ads a nanosecond before the 1st pitch to a hitter. They sandwich the 15 second ads in wherever they can. They superimpose the ad on the backstop and now behind the pitching rubber. I waiting for the Pennzoil patch to start showing up on sleeves.
* Speaking of the area behind home plate, where the ads are now, used to have white lettering on the green paint that said “NO PEPPER”. Kids now would have no idea what the meant.
* I like the classiness of these 2 teams while they compete hard. I felt the same about the Braves. Last night Choi tagged Seager in the head on a play at first and hung around to ask and see that Cory was okay. That showed lots of class as opposed to the behavior of the Machao’s and the Tattis’ of the game who can’t stop celebrating and showing people up long enough to play the game the right way.
* Thanks to Joe Buck for doing his best Tim McCarver last night in explaining what that black shit was on Justin Turner’s back. You can’t see the T. I was so comforted to know that it’s actually pine tar and not something else. So, all those grandmother’s in the home who are watching their first game, won’t think it’s something else.
I was very interested in watching Shane McClanahan last night. I have been following him since before the 2018 draft. He was one of the potential LAD picks for the first round, but was projected by many to go in the top 20 and LAD picked 30. McClanahan goes undrafted for the first 29 picks and it is the Dodgers turn. I was looking forward to getting to see the hard throwing lefty from University of South Florida in a Dodger uni. NOPE!! Instead the Dodgers chose High School RHP J.T. Ginn (who did not sign), and the Rays drafted McClanahan with the very next pick.
2D2 and AC, you said it all and I agree with you, thanks for your input.
Just wanted to add my thoughts on some of the nice things about last night’s game.
Nice to see Austin Barnes have a great day at the plate with his bunt and home run.
Nice to see Justin Turner pass Duke Snider’s postseason home runs along with his defensive play on the double play ball.
Nice to see Mookie Betts get two stolen bases and two hits.
Nice to see Max Muncy show that Doc’s faith and decision to bat him cleanup was a good one.
Nice to see the bullpen pitchers, Blake Treinen, Bazooka Graterol, and Kenley Jansen pitch very well.
Guess that is all. Oh wait….terrific to see the tremendous performance by Walker Buehler.
Only two more wins. Go Blue.
We are blessed to have the catching tandem that we have. Barnes look more comfortable in the box and this might be a result of having Mookie Betts. I read or watched somewhere recently about Mookie telling the guys about having a two strike approach instead of swinging for the fence in every situation. This guy has great confidence and doesn’t mind speaking out, perhaps even contradicting the cyber oriented hitting philosophy of past Dodgers teams. I am just so impressed with how smart and what a great leader Mookie is. His sure looks like the missing piece. He is much better that advertised.
I also like the squeeze plays, contact plays and stolen bases. The right way to play, the way that was developed over 100 years of trial and error, only to almost become mostly extinct by the analysts that try to make MLB play like a video game. I think that the Dodgers are blending old school and analytics very well right now. I’m glad to see more every day players and less platoons and demise of the one hitter pitcher.
Back to the catching tandem. It’s very surprising to see those batting lines. But, while watching the games, I see Will Smith constantly coming up with the big hit at the right time. Sometimes the stat lines are deceiving, especially considering the small sample size of the post season. I said recently that the Rays don’t do well against lefties and AC quickly pointed out that they are actually better against lefties than they are against righties. I was looking at their win/loss record when I made my claim. I guess we will see over the next couple of games how that works out.
I have no problem playing Barnes at all. He is a poor man’s AJ Ellis, and I loved AJ. Barnes’s bunt and HR was only the second time in World Series history that had ever happened, and the other player was Hector Lopez in 61 with the Yankees. Another one of those utility players no one cares about. Smith is the better power hitter, same as Grandal, and he does have a penchant for getting big hits at just the right moment. But as a duo, they are great. Strikeouts are still the one thing that bug me the most. And a strikeout looking? Well, that to me is just giving up without a fight. I would fine a player who just sat there and did not even try to foul the thing off. But that is me. And managers rarely fine players anymore. But they could do it in a kangaroo court like some teams used to have. I also agree that both May and Gonsolin have had that deer in the headlights look. Turner should finish his career in blue. He is far to valuable a player to just let him walk in free agency, and I believe he and probably Baez will be the two free agent’s to be that AF will have a huge interest in returning to the fold. I do not think they will pay Treinen 10 million plus again. I also think they might resign McGee, depending on the cost. But with Ferguson gone for a year at least, they could even use Wood in the same kind of role that Strip had, only from the left side. It all remains to be seen. I look for Urias to go at least 6. And as I said when this started, they needed to shut down Tampa’s hottest hitter, Arozarena, and they have. His homer last night meant nothing. Lombard recently interviewed for the Tigers job, and I read he also is in line for a couple of other interviews. LaRussa has also already interviewed for the White Sox position.
I forgot to add this – – – A fun read about the “historic” and weird aspects of last nights game by Jayson Stark:
Open on theathletic.comhttps://theathletic.com/2158132/2020/10/24/stark-weird-and-wild-world-series-game-3/Jeff, thanks for sharing that about your son and George Lombard. Now, even more than before, I too hope he gets his shot at managing.
Does anyone still believe that Austin Barnes should not be playing? This is not a knock on Will Smith who is and should be the everyday catcher, but Barnes is getting raves about his game calling and receiving skills, and it is finally getting the recognition that I have been obnoxiously talking about. Per Austin, it is the catcher’s job to make sure the pitcher does the best he can do. Check. In addition, Barnes is hitting:
Austin Barnes – .350/.381/.500/.881
Will Smith – .207/.270/.362/.632
The above is with 22 PA for Barnes and 63 PA for Smith. Barnes is hitting 9th, and Smith is hitting 5th and driving in runs (13 – 2nd on team behind Seager). So again, this is not about moving Barnes to the starter role. But in a backup role and working with certain pitchers, Barnes is ideal for LAD. Smith and Barnes is the best catcher duo in MLB. They complement each other fantastically.
Does anyone still believe that Muncy should not be cleanup in these games. I think it was before the NLCS that I said that if Max can get two RBIs without a HR, the Dodgers would win. He got 2 RBIs game 1 and 2 RBIs game 3, both wins. Max is showing why Doc kept putting him in the cleanup spot while most fans wanted him out. Me included. I did not like the walks. But Doc stayed patient with him and he is now being rewarded for that patience.
JT is playing himself into a 3 year contract (okay a 2 year plus option). He may not be able to play 3rd 162 games, but he can still pick it with the best when he needs to. Clutch defense (again) and clutch offense (again). He has been solid for his entire Dodger career, and he deserves to retire as a Dodger. Or we fans deserve to see him retire as a Dodger.
I am partial to George Lombard getting his shot at managing. In 2004, he and my son were very close when Andy was in Pawtucket. George is one of the few players that he feels comfortable communicating with after his stroke.