Hangover 4.
Have they made that movie yet? No? Well, they just did, at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night, complete with headaches, nausea and the shaky feeling of impending doom.
Less than a day after an exhausting six-and-a-half hour, 18-inning victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, the Dodgers curled up in the corner with a cold washcloth while the Jays smothered them with it.
After four games of this World Series, the Dodgers have the sweats while the Jays are fresh, feisty and very much alive, having pulled into a two-game-apiece tie after a 6-2 victory in a slog of a Game 4.
Certainly, both teams entered the night exhausted after the Dodgers’ 6-5 victory in the longest game in World Series history Monday night.
But while the Blue Jays literally bounced back, the Dodgers went psssssst.
“This team is talented, they’re resilient — talking about the Blue Jays,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “And they came back fighting.”
While the Blue Jays received strong starting pitching from Shane Bieber and powerful relief from an exhausted bullpen, the Dodgers received an underwhelming start from weary Shohei Ohtani and yet another bullpen meltdown.
The Blue Jay offense was aggressive, battling, nine of their 11 hits were singles and they did all this without veteran star George Springer.
“You see these guys grinding and using the whole field,” said Roberts.
The Dodgers offense, meanwhile, could barely hold the bat on their shoulders, scoring only two runs despite having runners on base in seven of nine innings, and they’ve now scored three runs in the last 20 innings.
“We could do at least the bare minimum to be able to put up some runs,” said Ohtani through an interpreter in what sounded like a rare critique of his teammates.
Before the game, Jays manager John Schneider correctly predicted his team was far from finished, saying, “It’s the World Series. Everyone is feeling good. They like these situations. We have responded well in these situations. In terms of second wind, no, man. It’s just wake up, get ready to do it again.”
It was a powerful proclamation, and the Dodgers?
“We just didn’t have an answer,” said Roberts.
Their lack of response was epitomized by the sorriest ninth-inning rally in recent memory, Teoscar Hernández leads off with a walk and Max Muncy doubles and nobody else can get the ball out of the infield until there was two outs — and Alex Call flied out to left to end the game.
While the series is very much up for grabs, Tuesday’s loss makes one thing very sickly certain. If the Dodgers do become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years, they will have to celebrate that title in Toronto. After Wednesday’s Game 5 here, that’s where the series travels for Game 6 and 7, if necessary.
For the 62nd consecutive season, the Dodgers will not be able to share that championship party in front of their home fans.
That stinks. But first things first. Starting with recently shaky Blake Snell on Wednesday, and continuing with Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow in Toronto, the Dodgers will have to figure out how to get at least seven innings out of the starters and stay the hell away from the damned awful bullpen.
It was the bullpen that unsurprisingly gave this game away after Ohtani left in the seventh inning trailing only 2-1 but with runners on second and third.
Enter Anthony Banda, who yielded an RBI single to Andres Giménez and an RBI grounder to Ty France. An intentional walk to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. later, Blake Treinen took the mound and gave up an RBI single to Bo Bichette and another RBI single to Addison Barger.
The Dodgers trudged out of that inning trailing 6-1 and the game was essentially over.
“Not great,” said Muncy, who has three hits in 17 at-bats in the series. “We’re missing on the big opportunities, myself included. I’m one of the big culprits of that. I’ve had some opportunities and I haven’t cashed in. We gotta get the big hit.”
And to think, the day started so brightly.
Kiké Hernández leaned into the stands on the second pitch to catch a foul ball. Ohtani was walked in the first inning to mark his 10th consecutive time reaching base. The video board showed Prince Henry and Meghan, both wearing Dodger caps, and the crowd booed, and it was all such fun.
The Dodgers even struck first, in the second, when Muncy walked, Tommy Edman singled to right and Hernández scored Muncy with a long fly ball to right.
The lead, however, didn’t last long, the Jays quickly rebounding in the third with a leadoff single by Nathan Lukes followed by a two-run home run by — who else? — Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
The Dodgers seemed to finally unnerve the Jays in the sixth when singles by Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández with one out shoved starter Shane Bieber to the dugout. But facing lefty reliever Mason Fluharty, the Dodgers failed spectacularly, with Muncy quickly flying out to center and Edman striking out.
After that Guerrero home run, Ohtani then proceeded to retire 11 of the next 12 hitters before giving up the single to Daulton Varsho and the double to Ernie Clement that led to his exit in the seventh.
Ohtani said he wasn’t tired from reaching base nine times the previous night. But his 0-for-3 night at the plate combined with his slow wither in 80-degree heat would suggest otherwise.
“You know, I don’t know,” said Roberts. “But, yeah, he gave us a good effort. He really did.”
Roberts eventually had no choice but to go to his maligned bullpen. But because they had all worked the night before, they were especially toothless.
“Obviously, last night was taxing on both clubs’ pens, but it’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck situation,” Roberts said.
If it wasn’t before Tuesday, it is now.
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