2023 NLDS: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

Betts looked as lost there as Stanton looked last time I saw him (borderline calls noted).

I’m not even questioning them being strikes (I think all the borderline ones have been, and mlb at-bat shows it to be so for that last one). It just feels like ridiculous bad luck that nearly every pitch is able to live right on that line against him (and only him!). Feel for the guy

Oh no…. This Dodgers season might finish with an Austin Barnes AB

ahhhh fuck I thought that was it

Too hopeful a proposition. Congrats dbacks

'73 Mets, '87 Twins, here come the '23 Diamondbacks.

look on the bright side. pretty good episode of Impractical Jokers on right now

i retroactively vote for D-Backs in 3

I thought the dodgers would put up more of a fight but I did think the Diamondbacks would take it. Flawed team, but they've got some players. Felt like the dodgers were relying on a lot of guys who were ready to turn into pumpkins. I didn't necessarily think they would do it all at once however.

You love to see it

Happy happy Joy joy

-Giants fan

I get the Rangers, I get the Phillies. I don't get Arizona at all. They were outscored this year--they won 84 games, and they were even worse than their record. Maybe the Dodgers pitching problems are just far worse than I believed. I knew they had a patchwork rotation, but if you win 100 games, I assumed they had figured a workable way around that.

also, I know people don't like thinking too much about this but baseball is just an incredibly high variance sport, middling teams can go on hot streaks, MVP candidates can go 3 for 30 in a week, teams can hit .500 with RISP one week and then .100 the next. this shit happens in the playoffs all the time. I mean the Royals statistically weren't even a top 10 team during either of their WS runs. idk I suppose you could add more games or something but this is why I've always found the MLB playoffs unsatisfying

and a narrative is ascribed retrospectively. it's almost disturbing to think about at any length. SORT OF LIKE LIFE

Believe me, I totally get the randomness of the playoffs, small-sample sizes, etc. Even with all of that in mind, the D-Backs are four wins away from being, in my mind, one of the least impressive WS teams ever. Truthfully, though, I can't see them getting past the Phillies or Braves.

See to me if you’re a hundred win team and you dip out in this fashion without a whimper, that’s kind of worse to me because you’re so drastically underperforming. At least the Orioles scored eight runs in game 2 and could have feasibly won game 1. The Dodgers never looked within touching distance of the Diamondbacks.

I think we agree on one thing here: this had a lot more to do with the Dodgers--Kershaw's meltdown, Betts and Freeman--than the Diamondbacks.

The Rangers are also just plain better than the Diamondbacks -- on any given day they're a team that CAN explode and knock out your starting pitcher two innings in and it just happened to happen two games out of three.

If the Rangers took it all, I wouldn't bat an eye--that would make sense to me. (Jays fans saw them at their absolute best in late September.)

I think the reason why I find the MLB playoffs actually very satisfying is because so many of these behemoths get knocked out by scrappy underdogs.

Lance Lynn looked shellshocked last night.

The Rangers are also just plain better than the Diamondbacks -- on any given day they're a team that CAN explode and knock out your starting pitcher two innings in and it just happened to happen two games out of three.

Magic has an interesting take:

We’re all disappointed that our Dodgers didn’t hit or pitch well. That’s why we lost the Series to the Diamondbacks!

— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) October 12, 2023

And I think Bee Ok & I alluded to it a bit in the Rangers-Orioles series when we were talking about Bochy’s willingness to hook his pitchers, but you have to manage differently in the playoffs. I don’t know how Dave Roberts left in Lance Lynn to give up four solo home runs in the same inning. Especially with it being an elimination game and the bats being cold. None of the relievers the Dodgers put out gave up a single run between them. If your choice is burning relievers or hoping the guy who gave up a ton of home runs this season didn’t continue to do so…idk

the Dbacks have a lot of good mid-tier players in the lineup. Gurriel, Marte, Moreno. And having two top SPs like Gallen and Kelly, yeah. that's one more than the Dodgers have had all season.

w/the dodgers, they'd been riding on the MVP-level seasons of Mookie and Freddie, but beyond that it really did feel like guys like Muncy, Martinez, Outman, etc were solvable. I guess i really didn't expect their two best players to completely crap out, hence me picking the Dbacks in 5! Though i did think Kershaw would again have trouble. albeit not that kind of trouble.

Magic has an interesting take:

"We’re all disappointed that our Dodgers didn’t hit or pitch well. That’s why we lost the Series to the Diamondbacks!"

― frogbs, Thursday, October 12, 2023 12:35 PM (thirty-four minutes ago)

Hardcore analytics is ruining the game.

This was my World Series this year. Loved watching how this concluded.

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.