Philadelphia – It’s over.
Or, from the point of view of the dodgers, it is just beginning.
Because the dodgers return to the World Series.
Technically, they still have to close their national league division series against Philadelphia Phillies. They still have to win the NL championship series.
But they will.
They will do it because they will not explode the advance of two games that they have after their 4-3 victory against the Phillies on Monday in match 2 of their best series.
They will do it because the Brewers Milwaukee and the Chicago Cubs do not have the firepower necessary to eliminate these Dodgers in the next round.
The phillies were to the Dodgers this year what the Padres of San Diego were last year. They were their biggest obstacle. The road back to the World Series is almost clear.
Dodgers can officially eliminate phillies on Wednesday, and they should.
Match 3 will be played at Dodger Stadium.
Their best launcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, will be on the mound.
Call a priest – or a paddle. The time has come to read the phillies their last rites.
The Dodgers did not come to win 120 games, and they were disappointing in the regular season, which explains why they could not obtain one or the other of the first round deadlines which were claimed by the Phillies and the Brewers. They entered the playoffs with an alarming trustwolf enclosure, and this lift enclosure almost made four points advanced in match 2.
But by stealing two victories at the Citizens Bank Park, the Dodgers have shown that they always had this championship something that no other baseball team has.
This something emerged on Monday evening in the six -sleeved rounds launched by Blake Snell, the Teoscar Hernández score slide on a slow rollerblading of Kike Hernández, the two -point single of Will Smith who opened the game, the insurance race led by Shohei Ohtani. This something was reflected in the two rounds brought by the starter converted Emmet Sheehan and the defensive games that save the game made by Miguel Rojas, Max Mancy and Mookie Betts.
The phillies do not have something, and the championship window which was opened by Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber could now be closed. They certainly recognized this, which is why the phillies manager, Rob Thomson, made no effort to minimize the importance of play 2.
If anything, Thomson stressed how critical the game was saying before the match that Ranger Suárez and Aaron Nola could present in relief.
Suárez and Nola were two candidates to start match 3.
“It’s a big game tonight,” said Thomson. “We talked about the winning series all year round and how the first match is important. Well, the second match is quite important when you arrive at a series of five games or seven games because it’s a swing game.”
Thomson was ready to deploy Suárez in a situation with high use. He was ready to call Nola if the match made additional sleeves.
“And we will understand match 3,” said Thomson.
House fans understood the issues. Citizens Bank Park was a crazy house in match 1, but the crowd of match 2 was relatively attenuated.
The nervous tension in the stage quickly turned into a frantic frustration, because the range of phillies could not do anything against Snell.
There were hoots when the shot champion Trea Turner struck in the third round. There were hoots when Brandon Marsh was surprised stealing on a picking by Snell to end the Channel. There were more hoots when Alec Bohm struck for the fourth final.
The first Hit Snell abandoned was with two fifth round withdrawals, a simple rocket in the center of Edmundo Sosa. The next striker, Marsh, was put to the ground. More hoots.
How nervous phillies fans? When a warning on the public address system on the streaks has been followed by a philly phanatic with bare chest crossing the outside field before the sixth round, they did not offer any reaction. The most emblematic mascot in baseball has been completely ignored.
Until now, the Dodgers were just as unproductive against the starter of the Phillies Jesús Luzardo. Betts chose and Teoscar Hernández walked in successive bats during the first round, only for Luzardo to remove the 17 consecutive strikers.
The phillies threatened Snell for the first time in the sixth round when Turner and Kyle Schwarber did successive steps. Next: Harper, a most useful double player in the NL.
In almost all the other playoffs, this is where manager Dave Roberts would have asked one of his coaches to call the enclosure of the lifts. But Roberts was not about to replace Snell, not at this stage of the game, not by the fuel of his listers.
Snell removed Harper and made Bohm soil in a force. The game remained aimlessly.
Teoscar Hernández in simple and Freddie Freeman doubled to start the seventh round, forcing Thomson in the position that Roberts was in the previous round. Thomson made a mistake but not because he withdrew Luzardo. His error was in the launcher that he chose to replace him. With Jhoan Duran closer available, Thomson went with Orion Kerkering.
With the second and third runners, Tommy Edman was removed by Kerkering for the first outing. But Kike Hernández struck a slow rollerblading and Teoscar Henández beat Turner’s return to the house for the first round of the game. Mancy walked to load the bases, setting up a single two points by Smith. Ohtani, who was safe in his previous seven at-bats of this series, has simple right to drive in a precious insurance race.
The Dodgers were on the way.
