Dodgers survive crazy play and poor managing to win Game 1 in Milwaukee

You can excuse me for thinking that the Brewers are a team of destiny after they turned a double play on a ball drilled by Max Muncy off of center fielder Sal Frelick’s glove and the center field wall. There was some confusion over whether the ball was caught on the fly or not, and that made Teoscar Hernandez hesitate enough for the Brewers to force him out at home on a relay from Frelick to Joey Ortiz to catcher Williams Contreras. If that wasn’t amazing enough, Will Smith stayed put at second base, allowing Contreras to job down to third base to force him out as well.

That is horrible base running from the Dodgers and also a good job by the umpires to get the play right without assistance from instant replay. How could Los Angeles survive such a horrible twist of fate? Well, it turns out Blake Snell was doing a fine Sandy Koufax impression on the mound. He struck out 10 batters in eight innings and the only batter that reached base against him was Caleb Durbin on a leadoff single in the third inning. Durbin ended up getting picked off, so Snell faced just the minimum 24 batters during his masterclass performance.

Poor Dave Roberts couldn’t resist making this game exciting even though he had a beautiful pitching performance in front of him. The Dodgers manager took Snell out of the game with a 2-0 lead so that Roki Sasaki could try to finish the game in the ninth. Sasaki has been a reliable closer for Los Angeles in the Postseason, but after retiring Durbin on a pop-up, he walked Isaac Collins and allowed Jake Bauers to smash a ground-rule double to center field. Jackson Chourio also hit the ball hard to center, but this one was run down by Andy Pages for a sac fly that scored one run and moved the tying run to third base. It would stay there, but only after Blake Treinen came on and struck out Brice Turang with the winning run in scoring position.

What do these big league managers think will happen if they leave in their starting pitchers past 100 pitches? Snell was only at 103 when he was pulled, and the Dodgers almost blew the game as a result. It’s not as though Snell had been through a stressful inning, either. The babying of pitches was frustrating in the regular season, but it is unbelievable now that it is still happening in Game 1 of the NLCS.

Earlier in the evening, the Mariners smashed the Blue Jays 10-3 to take a 2-0 lead in the ALCS as it heads to the United States. This one looked like it would be tight when Toronto answered Julio Rodriguez’s three-run home run in the first inning with a pair of RBI singles in the bottom of the frame and one more in the second inning to tie the game. However, Jorge Polanco put Seattle back in front in the fifth with a three-run blast off of Toronto reliever Louis Varland. Polanco has been a Canada killer with a pair of RBI singles in Game 1 followed by the go-ahead knock in this one.

The Mariners kept pouring on runs in the sixth and the seventh with two driven in by J.P. Crawford and two more on a home run by Josh Naylor. Meanwhile, the Seattle bullpen let up just one hit after Logan Gilbert left the game at the start of the fourth inning. The Seattle crowd should be wild in Game 3 with the franchise two wins away from claiming its first American League pennant.

0
0

0 Comments