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Sports Oct 12, 2023
A Dodgers rally towel distributed at the NLDS game Oct. 7, 2023. | Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Dodgers/Facebook
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The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ longer-than-expected offseason begins Thursday after they fell victim to an upset by a National League West runner-up in their opening postseason series for the second consecutive season.
The Dodgers suffered their first postseason sweep since a 2006 National League Division Series against the New York Mets when the Arizona Diamondbacks won a best-of-five Division Series with a 4-2 victory Wednesday night in Phoenix.
“You look at the game, the series, they outplayed us, and there’s no other spin to it,” Dodger manager Dave Roberts said. “And I tip my hat to those guys and wish them well.
“As far as our clubhouse, it’s just a lot of disappointment. And I believe in every one of those guys. With baseball, that team over there outplayed us,” Roberts said. “I can answer questions about the game itself, but the bottom line is that they outplayed us in every facet of the game.”
For the second time in three games, a Dodger pitcher set an unwanted record. Lance Lynn allowed a record four home runs to the Diamondbacks in the third inning, the first time a team had hit four home runs in an inning in a postseason game.
“He threw two scoreless and was doing well, and then he gives up the homer to (Geraldo) Perdomo. And then gets the grounder and the (Ketel) Marte homer. You’re still in the third inning, 2-0, then he gets (Tommy) Pham on a (ground out).
“You’ve got two outs and a low-pitch count, and you figure that this run of right-handed hitters, you’ve got to be able to navigate it somewhat with two outs, nobody on base. Then two homers later you’re down 4-0.”
Roberts replaced Lynn with Caleb Ferguson after back-to-back home runs by Christian Walker and Gabriel Moreno.
“I had some guys ready,” Roberts said. “Obviously I can’t predict the future. I try not to be reactionary and get ahead of things. I just can’t predict the future. The way he was throwing the baseball, I didn’t expect that.”
Lynn allowed a major league-high 44 home runs in his 32 regular-season starts.
Perdomo, the No. 9 hitter in Arizona’s lineup, hit a 2-1 four-seam fastball 383 feet with an exit velocity of 95.8 mph for his first home run of the postseason.
The home run extended the Diamondbacks’ streak of homering in a postseason game to 16 dating back to 2007, the second-longest streak all-time.
The New York Yankees hold the record with 23 consecutive games from 2019-22.
Marte hit a 1-0 cutter 428 feet with an exit velocity of 107.9 mph for his second home run of the postseason.
Walker hit a 3-1 cutter 395 feet with an exit velocity of 112.9 mph for his first home run of the postseason.
Moreno hit a 2-2 slider 420 feet with an exit velocity of 108.9 mph for his third home run of the postseason.
“I got behind in counts and they made me pay,” Lynn said. “That’s what they’ve been doing all series.”
Arizona hit nine home runs in the series.
In Game 1 Saturday, Clayton Kershaw became the first pitcher in Major League Baseball postseason history to allow five hits and five runs before recording an out in the Diamondbacks’ 11-2 victory.
The Dodgers were limited to two runs for the third consecutive game.
Arizona again held the top two batters in the Dodgers’ lineup in check. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman were both hitless in four at-bats Wednesday.
Betts was 0-for-11 in the series and Freeman 1-for-10, with a first-inning infield single in Game 2 accounting for the hit.
“I felt like I prepared the right way and I just did not execute anything,” Betts said. “Gotta tip your cap to them. They pitch the ball really great.”
After going 0-2 with a 9.35 ERA in two regular-season starts against the Dodgers, rookie right-hander Brandon Pfaadt allowed two hits over 4 1/3 innings, a third-inning single by Kiké Hernandez and a fifth-inning double by Will Smith, the last batter he faced.
The Dodgers combined consecutive singles by Max Muncy, Smith, Chris Taylor and Hernandez off Ryan Thompson with two outs in the seventh for their two runs.
Hernandez’s single drove in Smith and gave the Dodgers runners on first and second and prompted Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo to bring in Andrew Saalfrank to replace Thompson.
Saalfrank induced pinch-hitter Austin Barnes to ground out to end the inning.
The Dodgers had two baserunners over the final two innings.
The loss to Arizona, whose 84 regular-season victories were 16 fewer than the Dodgers’ 100, evoked memories of their four-game loss to the San Diego Padres in a Division Series in 2022 after the Dodgers won a team-record 111 games in the regular season, 22 more than the Padres’ 89.
“There’s some things with the format that people can dissect or whatever, but the bottom line is that the last two years we’ve got outplayed in the postseason,” Roberts said. “It doesn’t matter if it was a seven-game series, we lost the first three games.
“For me, I’ve got to do a better job of figuring out a way to get our guys prepared for the postseason. I’ll own that.”
Updated Oct. 12, 2023, 10:08 a.m.
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