2023 NLDS: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

Really? I'm sure it's for TV

I don't follow other sports, but seriously, is there a great, HOF-level basketball/hockey/football player (and Kershaw's even a little bit more than that) who has as miserable a post-season résumé as Kershaw? And his passed being a small sample size years ago: he'd pitched 194 innings over 21 series going into tonight (now almost up to 195 innings...). It's probably hard just finding anyone who's been in that many post-season games. (Sorry, not watching right now, so throwing out idle questions.)

What are you referring to bee ok? I’m talking about the borderline mookie strike out

I don’t think I can watch much more of this

What are you referring to bee ok?

_---

I hadn't noticed that this series has three off-days

that is dumb

don’t think I can watch much more of this

― H.P

I get it, sometimes it is hard being a fan. Painful

I feel like bad fan turning it off while all those dodger fans are still sitting in the stadium but this just is not what I need to give my Sunday afternoon to right now. I’ll keep it on in the background, time to do some house work and get my mind off it.

Okay, peralta doing the Freddie dance with this deficit put a smile on my face. Love to see that

difficult in basketball/hockey/football to separate individual performance from team performance, but i can't really think of any. joe thornton/philip rivers/dan founts had playoff stats worse than their regular-season numbers, but i wouldnt call them miserable

only other example that pops to mind is that barry bonds was pretty crappy in his first five playoff series (all losses) before going apeshit in 2002

10

I mean if the Dodgers don't score who cares how bad Kershaw did

(xpost) That is a big difference. Even if you're a position player in baseball, you might be able to sneak by with prolonged mediocrity. Pretty hard with a starting pitcher.

I thought the Dodgers might have made a game of it by the time I got home. Evidently not. Bob Costas sounds like he's writing Kershaw's obituary.

kershaw aside, and i thought the braves offense tonight was embarassing...

joe thornton/philip rivers/dan founts had playoff stats worse than their regular-season numbers, but i wouldnt call them miserable

think most QBs do measurably worse in the playoffs because you don't face bad defenses there. annoyingly enough the main exception is Tom Brady.

Varsho was great defensively this year, but god the Jays would love a do-over with Moreno (or at least I would).

Was not expecting that

I think (hope, dear god) this off day will help us get back on the horse. What a way to start…..

Kershaw’s fastball topped out at 91. I’m not sure he comes back in this series.

Lol Carroll walking to first base on a strike down the middle.

Let’s go Bobby!

Starting the game with a walk is not a good sign tho 😬

Motion to rename this thread “The H.P Schadenfreude Thread”. Wtf are you doing Dodgers?

Meanwhile, Dodgers down 3-0 already.

Not really sorry, it's the Dodgers so fuck them.

Xpost

Don't know what has gotten into the D-backs but loving it

32 pitches. Miller is a sook when he falls behind (young guy, been doing it all season) and it tends to snowball. Easily see the Dbacks taking on a few more before he’s out

Dodger’s one of the only teams to have Zac Galen’s number this season, 9.90 ERA in two starts.

LETS GO FREDDIE (don’t hurt yourself)

Geez that was close

Gallen really should have got to that first

Costas giving win/loss record

Uncharacteristic ab by J.D.. Looked lost

I guess to dumb down stats for the everyday person but still

Bobby 1ip, 40 pitches. No thanks

Longoria can still hit

These commentators are woeful

Costas has been around forever and a true fan. Anderson is the better one for TBS. Darling is great tho and is on the Mets broadcast

Solo home runs shouldn't kill you

Never thought I'd see Tommy Pham express a sense of humour, assumed he was really ready to knock brasier out there hah.

Dieter Ruehle the Dodgers secret sauce.

Right down the middle

Freddie assumed too much respect

If you are the dodgers you couldn't have asked for anything better

Gallen is holding his own thi

Brasier looking great a silver lining. Two run deficit not insurmountable with 4 innings remaining.

Don't know where Mookie has gone

They got it back, is what you want to do

four sliders in a row, maybe not the best call

they remove Zac Gallen to bring in wish.com Zac Gallen

(looks, not stuff)

Not the worst thing in the world as it sets up the double play, walks however

please Kiké

Hard not to compare them to the Braves of the 90's/early 00's - so much talent, so many regular season wins and post season appearances, yet only a single ring to show for it. Yet with these Dodgers, that win comes in a shortened season in front of zero fans. Must be very frustrating for their fans, and I'm here for it.

Weirdly enough, the Braves' one WS win also came in an abbreviated season--not nearly as brief as the COVID season (144 games), but shortened nonetheless.

all that regular season winning must be exhausting

Just occurred to me, in the strike season of '81 it was another underachieving team that finally won: the Dodgers lost the series in '74, '77, and '78, then won in '81. You might be on to something there.

The crown weighs heavy on the (regular season) king

My autograph friend came up for a visit yesterday and we watched the first half of G3 on rerun. I sort of half-followed it online on Thursday but didn't tune in till later.

I know Dodger fans don't want to relive this, but that four-HR inning was unbelievable. You've got a pitcher who--I learned from Posnanski--gave up more HR on a per-inning basis than anyone ever, who's 36 and overweight, who was a somewhat desperate late-season acquisition, and Roberts left him in for four HR.

Highest percentage of home runs per batter (min. 800 batters faced):

Lance Lynn, 2023, 5.45%
Bronson Arroyo, 2011, 5.38%
Jose Lima, 2000, 4.36%
Eric Milton, 2004, 4.99%
Jamie Moyer, 2004, 4.95%

So, yeah, it’s that remarkable. There has never been a pitcher in the history of baseball so skilled at giving up gopher balls.

This isn't Verlander in G1 of the WS last year, where I still believe Baker was correct to let him try to fight his way through five innings (and I believe the way the Series unfolded supports that for a few reasons). This isn't that--this is an elimination game. On the spectrum of managerial insanity, Schneider and Berrios is at one end, this is at the other.

When Moreno hit the almost-HR that was a few inches foul, and Roberts STILL left him in, we couldn't stop laughing knowing what was coming up.

What does L.A.'s front office do with Roberts? You've got a manager with the highest regular-season winning percentage ever, and you've got this.

I think this was a product of their pitching injuries because there’s no way he’d even be on the roster let alone starting if they have Gonsolin and/or May healthy, or if they’d managed to get Paxton or ERod like they wanted. But yeah, I said it above, once he’s given up a couple in an elimination game and the bats are dead, why risk it?!

I know they were stretched real thin, but this was still inexcusable in an elimination game. Even that McCullers game in the WS last year, bad as it was, wasn't as egregious not being an elimination game.

The playoff dodgers were a shell of the team that won 100 games, when your best pitcher at that point is an aging star w/an innings limit and a record of postseason disappointment, and your next two in line are a young guy who faded at the end and the king of the gopher ball, it all makes sense. In that context they'd have had to win a war of offensive attrition, and when your two consistent and reliably excellent hitters get shut down so completely, there's zero chance.

All true--but I assume you would have gotten Lynn out there--at the very latest--after the second HR?

I'm just trying to understand what was going through Roberts mind...I can't.

back to back HRs can be chalked up to a couple bad pitches but what he did wasn't excusable, i agree. it's not like the NBA where your opponent can go on a 12-0 run and you have to call a timeout, in MLB there's more time to think these things over and he should have yanked him. i think about his managing in the 8th inning of game 1 of the 2016 NLCS (bc it was against my Cubs) -- Blanton's in, he gives up a double, coaxes a groundout, Roberts orders an intentional walk, Baez flyout, another intentional walk to load the bases, Blanton gives up a grand slam, then immediately gives up a solo HR on the next pitch. and then Roberts had finally seen enough! Down 8-3.

Another year, another “wtf roberts” mishap in the post season. It’s a consistent thread. I don’t think they get rid of him (nor should) as he really is a phenomenal team manager and you don’t really see these decisions (or they’re not highlights because they come at extremely low stakes) in the regular season. I mean he has the highest win percentage of any manager in the mlb with .630. I think best case is the front office has a guy who sets some hard limits on expected situations in the post season in the future (“hey Dave, ya know that massive homerun liability you have starting an elimination game? Two in a row max. Hey Dave, ya know that ace who can become a shell of a man each post season? Don’t let him give up 10 runs in an inning”)

And yes as previously mentioned, can’t blame Dave too much for Betts and Freeman (and every other hitter). Or maybe you can? I don’t know

the dodgers getting lance lynn and joe kelly is a win for everyone else

― mookieproof, Friday, July 28, 2023 4:18 PM (two months ago)

'i would like to point out that i was otm'

Letting Lynn surrender four HR in an inning was embarrassing, but the nails were in the coffin anyway. They had no starting pitching and the offense was ice cold.

Kershaw's postseason ERA went from 4.22 to 4.49 with that last performance (postseason stats: 194.1 IP, 213 Ks, 51 BB, 1.11 whip vs 1.00 for the regular season...regular season ERA is 2.48)

the issue seems to be HRs, he's given up 30. the most he ever gave up in a full season was 28 HR back in 2019. career HR/9 IP is 0.7, vs 1.4 in the playoffs.