With Walker Buehler bringing heat on the mound and Corey Seager continuing his power surge at Globe Life Field, the confident Dodgers held on to again beat the Braves in an elimination game on Saturday, 3-1, setting up Game 7 on Sunday for the National League championship. Buehler, only 26
With Walker Buehler bringing heat on the mound and Corey Seager continuing his power surge at Globe Life Field, the confident Dodgers held on to again beat the Braves in an elimination game on Saturday, 3-1, setting up Game 7 on Sunday for the National League championship.
Buehler, only 26 but a master of pressure-packed assignments after the previous three years, won his rematch of Game 1 against Atlanta starter Max Fried. With a fastball consistently at 98-99 mph, Buehler bent but didn’t break.
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Pitching with finger blisters that have persisted for a month, Buehler allowed seven hits in six scoreless innings, striking out six, and the Braves stranded six with him on the mound. After walking five in five innings of Game 1, Buehler walked none in Game 6.
Atlanta’s three hardest-hit balls off Buehler were outs, including Marcell Ozuna’s long fly that ended the fifth inning when four-time Gold Glove Award winner Mookie Betts flagged it at the top of the wall with a typically spectacular leaping catch. Betts was so impressed, he broke into a happy dance leaving the field.
Seager continued cementing his standing in the postseason record books with the first of back-to-back home runs with Justin Turner in a three-run first inning. Seager has five home runs and 11 RBIs in this series, leaving him one homer and two RBIs shy of records for a postseason series. His six homers this postseason broke Davey Lopes’ 1978 club record, and his 15 RBIs broke Turner’s club record.
Blake Treinen took over for Buehler in the seventh and allowed a run, but Pedro Báez and Kenley Jansen (yes, closing again) secured the win and extended the season another day.
Once trailing in the series, 3-1, the Dodgers are trying to duplicate their comeback against the Astros in the 1981 NL Division Series, when they lost the first two and won the next three elimination games in a best-of-five. Entering 2020, 87 teams had fallen behind 3-1 in any best-of-seven postseason series. Only 17 of those (20 percent) won the next two games to force a Game 7. However, this is where the tide has turned, historically. Of those 17 teams, 13 (76 percent) went on to win Game 7, most recently the 2016 Cubs in the World Series against the Indians.
For a team that was never challenged during the season, the Dodgers have raised their game with their backs to the wall. They came from behind to win Game 5 with a series of pivotal plays, but looked more like the team with the best record in the regular season in Game 6, combining power, pitching and defense.
The two starting pitchers set the contrasting tone in the first inning. Buehler was effortlessly in the high 90s, and the Braves softly put his offerings in play through a 1-2-3 frame. Then Fried was rocked by the homers by Seager and Turner, the first on an 0-1 curve, the second on a 1-0 fastball. Seager’s homer was a towering blast inside the right-field foul pole and Turner’s traveled to center, just out of the reach of rookie Cristian Pache.
The two homers were as many as Fried had allowed the entire regular season.
And the inning wasn’t over. Max Muncy walked, advanced to third on a single by Will Smith and scored on Cody Bellinger’s single for a 3-0 lead.
As important as the bottom of the first inning was for the Dodgers, the top of the second might have meant more. The Braves gave themselves a chance to swing the momentum by loading the bases with no outs on singles by Travis d’Arnaud, Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson. Buehler responded by striking out Austin Riley and Nick Markakis, and getting Pache to ground out.
Fried regrouped to prevent any further damage, pitching into the seventh inning and resting Atlanta’s bullpen for Sunday’s decisive Game 7.
Ken Gurnick has covered the Dodgers for MLB.com since 2001.
https://www.mlb.com/news/dodgers-win-nlcs-game-6-2020
2020-10-18 00:15:21Z
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