The story I didn’t want to write. For the past five seasons the Dodgers have been in the playoffs. Actually 7 years of the past 10 years they gave gotten deep in the playoffs. This was the first time they got to the World Series. This team showed a lot of heart this year especially in this series. Of course I wanted the Dodgers to win tonight . Of course their was a chance they would lose. I didn’t expect them to lose this way though.
The game pitted Yu Darvish going against Lance McCullers. George Springer the most dangerous hitter on the planet hit a lead off double. I figure why pitch to him? Alex Bregman hit a grounder to Bellinger who then couldn’t make the throw to Darvish for the out. The Astros scored on the error. Bregman ended up in second and then stole third while the Dodgers were asleep. Jose Altuve hit a grounder to score Bregman. Astros lead 2-0. The game was pretty much over at that point.
Chris Taylor hit a double to start the bottom of the first. Corey Seager then struck out. Justin Turner was hit by pitch. Cody Bellinger then struck out. Yasiel Puig was then hit by pitch. Joc Pederson then grounded out. This would be a trend the rest of the game. In the 2nd inning, McCann walked. Marwin Gonzalez then hit a double. Darvish had to go at that point. McCullers grounded out to score a run. Wood and Kershaw waiting in the pen. Roberts left Darvish to face Springer the hottest hitter on the planet. A pitch down the middle was deposited in the seats. The Astros lead 5-0.
Roberts inability to get Darvish out of the game was a blunder as well as Darvish pitching twice to Springer. In the bottom of the 2nd the Dodgers had two men on base and couldn’t get nothing done. The Dodgers didn’t move runners over. Seager and Bellinger swung at the same pitch all series and missed. Justin Turner was nowhere to be found. Bottom of the 3rd two men on base again no outs and no runs came across.
The the bottom of the 5th the Dodgers had two runners on base again and couldn’t score. Meanwhile Morrow, Kershaw, and Jansen kept the Astros off the scoreboard. The trade deadline the Dodgers should’ve got Justin Verlander and we would be champions right now. In the bottom of the 6th inning the Dodgers scored a run when Andre Ethier singled in a run.
Alex Wood pitched as well and kept Houston off the board. Houston won the game 5-1. This game was lost by starting Darvish and keeping him in too long. This title was lost by not getting Verlander at the trade deadline. The Dodgers didn’t come through with runners on base and never moved runners over. Dodgers hitters didn’t make adjustments. All day long people of Los Angeles had all this confidence that we would win. For the Dodgers to come up with this clunker of a game and showing no fight wasn’t the Dodgers team I saw all year.
I’m still proud the Dodgers got here. I hope this pain fuels them. You get to a game 7 at home. You need to go with Kershaw or Wood. You have to claw for runs. Congrats to the Astros. Didn’t feel like putting in pictures since we lost. Thanks to all the readers who followed us this season with Ladodgerreport.
James Moya
Hi I’m James Moya. I am an avid Dodgers fan. I graduated Cal State Fullerton with a Bachelors in Communications. I used to freelance at the San Bernardino Sun. I’m excited about this opportunity to write for LA Dodger Report to gain experience. I’m a straight shooter on my opinions and I hope to get some good conversations going. My dream has always been to report on the Dodgers because Baseball is the National Past-time. I hope you enjoy the ride with me.
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Last thing. The astros have faced yu darvish so many times so they know him. All more reason to start someone else
This is very true. James you are 100% correct.
Thanks for contributing James. I’ll add my two cents tomorrow. I’ll just go to sleep and dream about this magnificent season we had.
My two cents is directed at the manager. It is also directed at the heart of the lineup which basically was heard from after game 1. Turner drove in all of his runs in game 1. Seager hit his only homer of the series in game 1. Roberts did not trust Hill and it cost him game 2. He overused his bullpen and it cost him the series. He did not pull Darvish early enough when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that the guy had nothing. That first inning double should have been his first clue. Letting Darvish pitch to Springer again cost him the game. The FO gave them the tools and the tools failed when it mattered most.
Agree with Michael’s points. I also think the strikeouts came to roost and killed us. Lead off double, 2 hit batters and we get nothing. One run in that first inning would have been huge.
Our coaches have all the matchups figured out, but one thing they haven’t learned until this game was to walk the hot bats. Example was getting that Maybin popoit after walking the bases loaded intentionally. The Astros have holes in their lineup too but we kept pitching to their hottest hitters.
Roberts is the goat, YF. No doubt about it. These kinds of series are above his pay grade. Sorry to be so blunt but he’s got no managing experience in these kinds of situations. His tactics have lost more games than I care to remember and yet he was manager of the year 2016. I could never figure that one out. He’s probably a nice guy and very fair to the players.
So Fran finally has a post season game that he didn’t give up 1,2 or 3 home runs, and he picks a game that our batz sucked donkey.
Oscar you are so right, Kershaw is our Fran Tarkenton. You nailed it.
We threw away this series, we should have won this thing in 5 games.
Roberts was in over his head. Like Tommy told him “you haven’t done shit until you win tomorrow”.
That abortion we witnessed last night was just a crying shame. This series was a crying shame. Fran in the playoffs is a crying shame.
LOL. Some of the posters here are really on different planets or realities.
There’s one principle reason the Dodgers lost. Kershaw was fine (could have been better.) Roberts was fine (could have been better.) Darvish was awful (could not have been worse.)
Darvish pitched two games and was dreadful in both. That’s nearly 30% of a seven game series for Ed Dinger whose math is probably as problematic as his ability to evaluate baseball or come up with clever nicknames.
It was for 85% of the time (6 out of seven games) a great Series. It was a great season. The team is great and well-positioned.
Felony Dufus, you got nothing and we all know it. Nice try but you still look more and more stupid with every attempt. Stick to the cut and paste method, at least it gives you the appearance of not being a dimwit.
Stick to the homophobic posts and third grade nicknames.
Change your fake name a couple of more times. I’m sure you will find it clever and/or funny.
Oh, I don’t think he’s dimwit….just insufferably condescending and narcissistic.
Agree with Michael on most of his analysis. Personally, I don’t even think the hitting was the issue. I’ll grant some latitude for guys like Turner to finally come down to Earth and stop hitting for a while. It happens.
I wonder, though, about Kershaw. We saw this in a game during the Cubs series and off and on during the season, especially at the beginning, where he just doesn’t look like himself. He doesn’t have command of his fastball, and his slider – and this is key – just doesn’t bite and slide like it usually does…or used to. I worry that maybe we’ve seen the end of the Kershaw who was the absolute best pitcher of his generation who, now, is just pretty darned good, but not the guy who can carry this team. Maybe this is the new normal.
You also don’t deviate from the script when the script won you 104 games. Has Morrow pitched in three straight games at any time during the regular season? He had nothing in game five. Did Jansen get six out saves consistently during the regular season? Yes, Houston had the best offensive team by far this year and they’re just and excellent team, but all the more reason why you don’t ask your pitchers to consistently pitch outside their performance envelope. If you’re off just a little bit – if you don’t have the same zing on your pitches or you don’t hit your spot, you’re gonna get killed by a great hitting team.
Pulling Rich Hill in game two. That’s going to be debated for a while. Yes, I understand the statistics about facing the order the third time, but Hill also, statistically, seems to pitch better deeper into a game. I think a good argument can be made that pulling him early started a cascade effect where the bullpen became overused. Statistically and historically, both Morrow and Jansen faltering as badly as they did as the series wore on is unprecedented. The only variable that changed is that their respective usage went up…..and Houston is a really good offensive team.
I think Roberts is a much better manager than Mattingly in terms of leadership style. The team bought in to his style, were cohesive, were grinders and didn’t fold, as evidenced by the number of come-from-behind wins. I think he made some debatable tactical moves.
Yu? ….all the more reason why you don’t necessarily give up a prospect haul for a rental. It was still a good move because the team didn’t give up a lot, but I can’t help but wonder what Ryu would have done last night..or if the Dodgers had gotten Verlander instead. The last two games probably cost Yu millions of dollars in the free agent market.
Hitting was an issue. How many games are you going to win when the meat of your order goes missing for 6 games? The Dodgers hit .205 for the series with 10 homers, 11 doubles and a triple. The Astros hit .230 with 13 doubles and 15 homers. For the series the Astros scored only 1 run more than the Dodgers. 5 of the 7 games were decided by 2 runs or less. The Dodgers lost 2 games in which they had the lead late in the game. Here is what the first 4 hitters in your lineup hit for the series. Taylor.222, Seager.222,Turner.160,Bellinger.143. Between them they drove in 14 runs. The Astros top 4. Springer.379,Bregman.233,Altuve.194,Correa.276…..between them they had 23 runs driven in. And they hit 11 of the Astros 15 home runs. The top 4 Dodgers hit 5. The Dodger pitchers never adjusted to those guys, and the Dodger hitters, at least the middle of the lineup, never changed their approach at the plate the entire series. Bellinger was especially frustrating to watch. The Dodgers struck out 65 times, and Bellinger was responsible for 17 of those. 8 more than #2 on the team Seager. It was all or nothing, and the only game that Bellinger adjusted his swing, he got 2 doubles. What was even more maddening, at least for me, was the fact that they kept pitching him down and in and he and Corey kept swinging at pitches they had no chance in hell of hitting. The only players to hit 300 or more for the series, Charlie Culberson, Andre Ethier, and Joc Pederson. Forsythe was the only player who played all 7 games who had a decent average at .278. It was a total team loss and some of that is laid directly on the shoulders of the man running the show. I think for the most part that over time, Dave Roberts is going to be a very good manager. I think he got a little too cute with the rotation and the bullpen usage. I also think having 2 guys on the roster who basically were fodder, McCarthy and Fields was a waste of roster space. Neither one of them was effective in their outings, which amazingly came in the same game. Fields pitched 0 innings…….he faced 3 batters and gave up 3 extra base hits. His ERA is 0.00 because you cannot compute an ERA without a part of an inning being pitched. The two guys who lost 3 of the 4 loses, Darvish and McBrittle, their ERA’s were north of 18. Of course they would be since Darvish pitched a whopping 3.1 innings and McBrittle barely made it out of 1. I was a little surprised that I was not more upset that they lost the series. But I think it was because I expected the worst and hoped for the best. I am more pissed off that I will have to listen and read the chortle and giggles of all those extremely annoying Giant fans who are going to be chanting chokers and what a bunch of losers. Next year, 2018 it will be 30 years since we have tasted the fruits of victory. Will the Dodgers make another championship run? Who knows. There are so many things that can happen to a team along the way. A few things I would like to see happen. Chris Taylor moves to second on a permanent basis and makes the infield one of the best in the league. Logan Forsythe slips into Chase Utley’s role as the super infield sub. Adrian Gonzalez calls it a career because of his back and retires gracefully. Andre Ethier signs with another team after the Dodgers refuse his option, and has at least 1 good full season before he calls it a career. Chase Utley is retained in the organization as a coach or instructor of some kind. The Dodgers address the starting catcher position by either trading Grandal and finding a good defensive backup for Barnes, or by getting Grandal to work more on making contact and not expanding his strike zone so much. Turner Ward continuing his solid work with Yasiel Puig and Joc Pederson. Something clicked for Joc in the World Series and I would like to see him build on that. I could see him becoming the regular left fielder next year. Give Verdugo a real shot at the starting CF job along with Toles next spring. I think Toles will bring some offense to this team that it missed this year. I like Toles in CF more than left. The starting rotation should have at least 2 RHP in it next year. I think the overload of lefty’s against a team like the Astros and the D-Backs and Rockies who are all predominantly RH, is a negative. Kershaw I hope, has an injury free season. Wood and Hill repeat what they did this year. Darvish will be a bad memory by next year. Will Maeda go back into the rotation? Most likely, I doubt he wants to stay the long man out of the pen. Will Buehler and Urias be ready? Urias will probably not make an appearance until mid season at least. The bullpen will be revamped. I do hope they resign Morrow. The guy deserves a new contract. Watson will most likely be gone. Baez? He was the forgotten man. Could he have been effective in the series? I would have rather seen his high cheese in there than the lame crap McBrittle and Fields had. There will be changes, hopefully some that make this team stronger for the 2018 season, which could be Kershaw’s last as a Dodger, although I am thinking he realizes the grass in not always greener somewhere else. By the way, reports are still out there saying that Rick Honeycutt will not return as pitching coach. Since he is the only pitching coach CK has ever worked with, I wonder how that will affect his decision next year.
This was a good post Michael, thx!!
if darvish hadnt started that game..we would of won it 1- to 0 ., dave listen to the player and does not manage;; he is the boss and not the players..so i blame it on dave.
Dear Jerry,
Counter-factuals do not make a good basis for a point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional
You can be better.
Ethier should have been used a lot more especially against curveball right handlers.
I totally agree and the fact that he was 2-5 shows he was on the ball most of his at bats.