Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo had set down 17 in a row, but after facing two Dodgers hitters in the seventh, he was gone.
Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo had set down 17 batters in a row going into the seventh inning of Monday’s National League Division Series game. The Dodgers hadn’t had a hit or a baserunner since the first.
And it didn’t look like they’d get another.
“Luzardo,” said Dodger first baseman Freddie Freeman, “was amazing.”
Yet it was Freeman who brought Luzardo’s masterful night to an end and pushed the Phillies’ season to the brink, keying a 4-3 Dodger win that sends the best-of-five series to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday with Philadelphia a loss away from spring training.
“It's huge. It's absolutely huge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the two-game sweep on the road. “Guys are really stepping up.”
Especially in the seventh, when the Dodgers batted around, producing the kind of inning they rarely managed in the regular season, one that featured aggressive at-bats, smart baserunning and three two-out RBIs.
“All that coming together; just really good at-bats up and down the lineup,” Roberts said.
Read more:Hernández: The Phillies are done, and the Dodgers' path to the World Series looks clear
Teoscar Hernández got it started with a single to center. Freeman followed with a hit off the end of his bat into the right-field corner, a single he turned into a double when he refused to stop at first, surprising outfielder Nick Castellanos.
“I was trying to keep things going, put pressure on them,” Freeman said. “I just wanted to push the envelope in that situation since we hadn't had anything going on since the first inning.”
Luzardo had given up one hit through six innings; now he’d given up two in the span of five pitches.
“He retired 17 in a row. He had 72 pitches. He's pitching great,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
But after Freeman’s hit he was done, with Thomson summoning reliever Orion Kerkering. The Dodgers, however, were just getting started, and an out later Hernández put them ahead to stay, breaking smartly from third on Kiké Hernández’s slow roller by the mound, then sliding to the back of the plate to beat shortstop Trea Turner’s wide throw home.
Pinch-hitter Max Muncy followed with a four-pitch walk to load the bases for Will Smith, whose two-out single on the first pitch he saw drove in two more runs.
“In that situation, it's very easy to try to want to do too much,” Muncy said. “You have a chance to drive in a couple runs. It's very easy to chase a pitch. But you’ve just got to be diligent with what you're trying to do up there and just pass the baton to the next guy.”
The Dodgers' rally had been built around a double that should have been a single, a run-scoring fielder’s choice that barely passed the mound, a walk and Smith’s one-hop single to left, the hardest-hit ball of the inning. When Shohei Ohtani grounded a single by diving second baseman Edmundo Sosa, the Dodgers led 4-0.
“Obviously some huge two-out hits by Will and then Shohei. Great play by Teo getting his foot in,” Freeman said. “A lot of good things happened in that seventh inning.”
The inning also silenced the sellout crowd of 45,653, which minutes earlier had been louder than a rock concert during a NASCAR race. When Matt Strahm, the third pitcher of the inning, finally got Mookie Betts for the third out, the fans booed the Phillies off the field.
The crowd came alive again in the ninth, when Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen gave up three hits and two runs without getting an out to let the Phillies back in the game. But Roki Sasaki then took them out again, retiring Turner on a groundball with the tying run on third, earning his second save in as many games.
Read more:Dodgers lean on big seventh inning to defeat Phillies and take 2-0 NLDS lead
When it was over the Phillies, who had the best home record in the majors this season, had lost consecutive games at home for the first time since June 1. And the Dodgers, unbeaten this postseason, were a win away from the NL Championship Series.
“Lots to unpack in that one,” Roberts said.
Freeman managed to put it all in perspective.
“We were just sitting at our lockers and Kiké said, ‘we just took two here’,” he said. “This is a hard place to play. Incredible fan base. It's loud here.
“We obviously put ourselves in great position going into Wednesday.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Category: General Sports
