By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2017/11/02/darvish-owns-game-seven-but-he-wasnt-the-only-dodger-culprit/Give Yu Darvish credit. He owned this one and didn’t flinch. He went out to start Game Seven of the
World Series, got torn apart in an inning and two thirds, and felt even worse for letting down the
team he appreciated for giving him another postseason shot in the first place.
Especially because his previous Series start, in Game Three, went the same way, only with one less
run against him.
Red-eyed and looking for all the world like he’d come home to catch his wife in bed with someone
else, Darvish admitted he’d lost some of his passion for baseball until the Dodgers dealt for him in
July. “They gave me goals,” Darvish said of his new team. “They gave me the goal of not wanting to
lose until the end. Then my goal became to perform well in the World Series.”
He said his breaking balls failed him in Game Three and he spent much of his time until Seven working
on them. “Over the last four days, I made adjustments and was able to get them to the point where I
could throw them for strikes,” said the righthander who won a division series game and a National League
Championship Series game. “But I wasn’t able to get them to the point where I could dominate hitters.
It’s disappointing I wasn’t able to do that in the last two games.”
George Springer put paid to Darvish’s Game Seven and, possibly, his life with the Dodgers (he becomes
a free agent now), with a two-run homer in the top of the second Wednesday night. It won’t comfort
Darvish to be reminded he was only the first, not the last Dodger failure.
Dodger hitters went 1-for-13 with men in scoring position and left ten men on base. They couldn’t even
cash it in when Astros starter Lance McCullers, Jr. looked early and often enough like he was trying to
hand them runs on a plate to make things a little more even between the two sides.
Chris Taylor opened the bottom of the first with a double to match Springer’s game-opening double.
McCullers drilled the bases loaded, hitting Justin Turner with one out and Yasiel Puig with two out. But
Joc Pederson, the Dodgers’ best Series hitter, grounded out to second base for the side.
In the second, with Logan Forsythe on second after being moved there on an infield out, McCullers drilled
pinch hitter Enrique Hernandez to set up first and second, but Taylor lined out to shortstop Carlos Correa,
who doubled Forsythe off second with a toss to Jose Altuve.
And in the third, Corey Seager led off with a base hit and McCullers hit Turner again. McCullers struck out
Cody Bellinger—whose first inning error, ranging too far right to get a grounder Forsythe would have had
a better chance of turning into an out, then throwing wild to let Springer score the first Astro run—and
yielded to Brad Peacock. Peacock got Puig to fly out and struck out Pederson and there went that idea.
The Dodgers went in order in the fourth, but a one out walk and a followup base hit in the fifth chased
Peacock for Francisco Liriano, who got Bellinger to force Turner while Seager took third. Chris Devenski
came in and got rid of Puig for the side on a soft liner Altuve could have caught barehanded.
It was almost dumb luck that the Dodgers scratched a run out of Charlie Morton in the sixth. That was
as generous as Morton and the Astros planned to be. Morton retired the Dodgers in order in each of
the final three innings.
And with Clayton Kershaw pitching four shutout relief innings, Kenley Jansen pitching one—the eighth
—and Alex Wood pitching one in the ninth, the second guessers are already trying to figure out how
manager Dave Roberts could have stuck to the plan for Darvish starting Game Seven.
Especially knowing Kershaw told anyone who’d listen and publish, the day before, that he was willing
to pitch 27 outs if need be. And working his four Game Seven relief innings like he had the tools still
at hand to back it up.
Sure, a big reason the Dodgers made the move to get Darvish was to keep Kershaw from having to
work on short rest, as happened in too many previous postseasons with disaster ruining what were
usually solid outings otherwise.
If Kershaw went to the mound Wednesday night with ideas of proving he’d finally figured out what to
do and not to do on short rest, it’s no wonder the second guessers are guessing.
That doesn’t explain the Dodgers feeling so desperate after just a 2-0 deficit in the middle of the first,
never mind 5-0 in the middle of the second, that they started trying to hit six-run homers with every
swing of the bat.
Or Bellinger, the likely National League Rookie of the Year Award winner, making a AA-level fielding
mistake to let the Astros start on the board, while breaking Aaron Judge’s postseason strikeout record
—in the same postseason in which the Yankee bombardier set it.
Or the Dodgers hitting .208 as a team all Series long with their biggest guns—Turner, Puig, Bellinger,
Seager, and Taylor—combining to hit .168 in the set, while Pederson rebounded from a horror of a
regular season (including a minor league demotion at one point) to hit .333 with three homers, five
RBIs, and a 1.344 Series OPS.
The Astros didn’t hit that much better as a team (.230), but Springer and several others—especially
big sticks Altuve, Correa, Alex Bregman, and Yuli Gurriel—found ways to get the big hits when needed
the most. And there was almost no way to stop Springer’s mayhem without making him hit from
inside a phone booth.
“Tonight I’ll probably just hang out with these guys, just try to remember the season and the guys,’’
said Kershaw, who’s become deeply religious without thumping a Bible in front of anyone who gives
him the opportunity, after Game Seven ended. “Right now we’re just trying to kind of, without being
too emotional, just kind of embracing each other a little bit. Just understanding we’re all feeling the
same hurt.”
Even with the prospect that the Dodgers just might be back in next year’s postseason, since they’re
too got not to be, Darvish couldn’t seem to shake Game Seven off that simply.
“When I have an awful day, what I think about is how for every awful day I’ve had, I’ve had a great
day and I’ve added another wonderful person to my life,” he said. “When I think like that, it’s easier.
But what I did today affected everyone on the Dodgers, so I don’t know if that’s going to work.”
It’s a terrible weight to carry when your awful day puts paid to a season in which yours was the
National League’s best team and had no reason to lose a World Series that looked like it was going
to go right down to the last inning. When your awful day let the Astros look better than your team
for two fateful innings that turned out to be the ones that mattered too early.
Darvish has said he wants to return to the Dodgers even as he hits free agency. Nobody knows just
yet if the feeling is mutual. Maybe wait until the World Series loss is a month old?
Things could always be worse. Just ask Puig. He went home from Game Seven to discover his home
in nearby Encino, California was burglarised during the game. All the burglars broke was a window,
without actually robbing the place. That proved nothing compared to Dodger hearts broken by Astro
bats.
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