Once brimming with life, the Dodgers’ historic quest has curled up into a withered heap.
The three-peat is dying.
The three-peat is slowly, agonizingly having the life squeezed out of it by a collection of hardscrabble Midwesterners with no regard for stardom or status.
Two games into the National League Championship Series, the three-peat was formally placed on life support Monday after the mighty Dodgers lost a second consecutive game to those little giants known as Milwaukee Brewers.
Shohei Ohtani strikes out during the sixth inning
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
This time the score was 7-4 after another devastating night at American Family Field, and now the Dodgers trail two games to none in a best-of-seven series that appears beyond their control.
For a second consecutive game, their ace was knocked out. For a second consecutive game, their powerful offense petered out.
For a second consecutive game, they looked like a weary, aging band of fallen stars that had stumbled into a surprisingly deep pothole and had no idea how to climb out.
For the Dodgers to win this series and continue their journey toward a third consecutive championship, they must beat the Brewers in four of the next five games, the last two of which would be played in Milwaukee.
It doesn’t seem likely. It doesn’t even seem possible.
Not once in in their previous two title seasons did they trail anybody two games to none, and they certainly don’t seem equipped to survive it now.
Look at how they lost Monday. On second thought, don’t look, because what you’ll see bears scant resemblance to the swaggering, self-assured Dodgers of postseasons past.
They pitched their October ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and he’s always saved them, right? Not this time. He couldn’t make it out of the third inning, battered by scattered wildness and scathing swings.
They were handed runs on two errors by the Brewers’ shaky rookie starter, Logan Henderson, and they’ve always capitalized, right? Not this time. They couldn’t make the Brewers pay for their clumsiness, managing just three hits, the slumps of their superstars ever deepening, Will Smith and Shohei Ohtani becoming absolute offensive liabilities.
Even with all this, they sent Henderson packing after four innings and took aim at a heavily used Brewers bullpen and surely they could summon the firepower to send at least one of those relievers running, right? Not this time, as four Brewers relievers set a postseason record by pitching five perfect innings.
The last two innings being a sad microcosm of the previous seven.
Entering the eighth inning, the Dodgers trailed only 4-3 and had the top of their order coming up in what still could have been a trademark Dodgers October comeback.
Mookie Betts strikes out in the eighth inning.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Not so fast.
Facing Abner Uribe, Mookie Betts struck out. Facing Aaron Ashby, Freddie Freeman struck out and Teoscar Hernández grounded out. Yeah, with perhaps their season on the line, they couldn’t even get the ball out of the infield.
The Brewers, of course, sealed the deal with two runs on three singles in the bottom of the eighth, and the Dodgers went meekly 1-2-3 in the ninth.
It was surely, truly painful for Dodgers fans to witness the final out, a strikeout by … yep, last season’s World Series hero Miguel Rojas.
The three-peat is dying, and it’s almost unbearable to watch.
Having both of their aces beaten in Milwaukee, the Dodgers will come home with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow starting in Games 3 and 4, respectively.
In any other scenario, both pitchers are aces as well, and the Dodgers would have a huge advantage. But neither pitcher has looked great in the postseason, and both will be pitching while bearing the weight of a stressed-out Dodgers Nation.
“Yeah, it’s certainly a challenge,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I think that if you look at Game 3, I like where we’re at as far as in a vacuum, who’s pitching, where our bullpen is at, being at home. Then you’ve got to go from there.”
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Game 2 is that the Dodgers led … then blew the lead … then led … then blew the lead … then led …then blew the lead.
The Brewers’ final tying blow came on William Contreras’ fifth-inning homer against Kris Bubic, who has struggled in this postseason and perhaps shouldn’t have been in the game. The Brewers’ final go-ahead run came in the sixth on Contreras’ bases-loaded single after Brice Turang surprisingly was intentionally walked in front of him.
But neither of those plate appearances was the game’s most important. The key moment that actually didn’t score any runs was Jake Bauers’ 12-pitch walk in the third inning.
That loaded the bases, and Christian Yelich then greeted an exhausted Yamamoto with a two-run single.
“Yeah, it just got to a certain point where it was straight compete mode, a little bit of like blackout, just kind of in the flow a little bit competing,” Bauers said. “It was fun. It was a fun at-bat. I knew that was a moment where the guys needed something, the team needed something.”
Funny, but those are the kind of things Dodgers hitters used to say, back when they were confident and full of life.
But Smith is one for 23, and Ohtani is three for 19, and the Dodgers have just one extra-base hit against the Brewers, and nobody is saying anything about the fun of competing.
In fact, things are so lousy, Roberts appeared to call out Smith for not using the ABS challenge in the early innings against Turang. Both times strikes were called balls, and Turang took advantage of the missed calls to double and walk and score twice.
Yamamoto also seemed annoyed that his catcher could be letting his batting woes affect his work behind the plate.
“Obviously in that spot, Will didn’t feel like it was a strike, but obviously if you look back, that’s a called third strike, he doesn’t double, and that changes the outing,” Roberts said of Turang’s first-inning at-bat.
Roberts still has hope. But he’s not looking past Game 3.
“As far as can we do it, absolutely, but it’s just you want to get that first one,” he said.
Dodger Stadium will be filled with fans in what could be a celebration. Or a wake.
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