Dodger Talk

He's pitched worse and worse since that All-star game. He's lost velocity and location isn't as easy for him. They're in big trouble with him on the mound today.

Yu Darvish may have really f***ed the team with the worst outing of all time. I have lost quite a bit of optimism. There's a good chance we're down 1-3 for Kershaw tomorrow and we'd be putting a whole lot on his shoulders at that point...

 

Amazing game from our 4th pitcher. Bats finally woke up. Joc is a pure unexpected bonus. But Bellinger getting two hits is HUGE for the rest of the series.

 

This is an awesome WS so far. I don’t follow baseball like I used to, but playoff baseball still rules. That Pederson home run was huge, because I did not feel going into the 9th up 3-1 was good enough to feel safe if you’re the Dodgers. Sure enough, Jansen gives up another home run in the 9th and that would have made it 3-2 without those 3 insurance runs, dangerous territory. Instead, it’s a nice home run, nothing more, Dodgers finish it out easily after that.

 

The Dodgers had the worst 7 innings I've seen from them all year at the plate. Literally the only at-bats worth anything all night came out of Forsythe. Joc had a solid one. Kike had a solid one. Everyone else, including all our best players, gave the worst performances I've ever seen. Let's be clear: Morton pitched pretty well, but not well enough for our guys to give what they gave up. They swung at bad pitches and watched good pitches for strikes. The umpire had a massive strike zone, but still Turner, Bellinger, Taylor, Puig, and Seager all looked like they wanted to lose this game and go to game 5 already. Even when we somehow lucked into a man on 2nd or 3rd, we would quickly ground out or fly out badly. It was the most frustrated I've been thus far in the playoffs.

Thank goodness Bellinger stopped trying to hit home runs and thank goodness the Astros stopped throwing that cutter inside on him and started throwing something up.

Alex Wood had maybe the best game anyone could have ever asked for. He now has the longest no-hit bid ever by a Dodger pitcher in the playoffs beating Koufax by 2 innings. That's just amazing. I was livid that his offense refused to pick him up all game long. If I were him I'd be yelling my lungs raw in the dugout wondering what f***ing game they were all playing while I dominated the best offense the Dodgers have faced all year. Everyone had a reason to doubt Wood after he struggled in the NLDS and had been struggling really since the All-Star break, but he's a tremendous competitor. Got to love what he did for us.

Joc has been a revelation. I love where he's at and where his head is at. His at bats have been the best he's had literally all year long. He's got good patience right now and if he had been playing like this all year the Dodgers would never have experimented with Granderson in the NLDS.

I expected the Dodgers to be 2-2 at this stage, but I expected them to win Game 3 and lose Game 4. Now it's a 3 game series and we've got home field advantage back. This is one of the best World Series of all time and I'm feeling pretty good right now about the Dodgers' chances. Let's see if Kershaw can give them another historic performance. We could really use a 1-2 run game in 7 innings out of him. I don't know if Morrow is going to be able to pitch today. Hopefully we can attack Keuchel again, but besides the home runs he gave up, he was surgical against us.

Tomorrow isn't the end of the world, but obviously I'd prefer if we win every Kershaw game. If we lose tomorrow we still have 2 games at home to win. If we win the Kershaw game we've got Rich Hill and then everyone else in the Darvish game just in case Darvish has another epic collapse. Start Darvish, get what you can and then bring Wood and Kershaw out of the pen along with every bullpen arm.

 

I gotta admit I was grumbling all game about Roberts going with Joc at DH instead of Culbertson when our bats desperately needed a wakeup call. Then the ninth inning happened. Reaalyy glad to be wrong on that one.

 

I’m not sure which game it was in Houston then but I remember the announcer identified Joc as the DH.

 

I think it was a mistake on the Dodgers part. They changed their mind at some point after they'd already submitted lineups and changed Joc to the LF and had Kike DH for the team.

Either way, their at bats yesterday were lightyears ahead of our big four almost the entire night. Both of them had really, really tough called strikes that could have easily gone the other way for them.