Dodgers make history with starting rotation and maintain 2-0 lead over Brewers
Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports breaks down the Dodgers’ dominant rotation that helped the team grab a 2-0 lead over the Brewers in the NLCS.
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How much of an impact can a 6-foot, 245-pound slugger have on a playoff series?
We’re about to find out that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is participating in the American League Championship Series.
Vladi was an even chance destroyer in Game 3. He nearly punched a hole in the left-field fence with a crucial double, then a tuck-on home run that eluded the pounce of center fielder Julio Rodriguez, cracking a hole in right-center for what would have been a triple and a playoff cycle.
Vladi was a prophet, pulling away from No. 9 hitter Andres Jimenez before the game and telling the light-hitting shortstop, “You’re going to the yards today.”
“I told him to try and pull the ball,” Guerrero said in a postgame interview on Fox Sports about his conversation with Jimenez before he hit the game-tying two-run homer. “Thank God he listened to me. I’m going to the garden today.”
And perhaps most importantly, Vladi has proven himself to be a postseason monster.
He entered the game 0-for-7 in the ALCS and 0-for-2 with the Blue Jays, leading to a must-win game against Mariners right-hander George Kirby.
Guerrero had four hits, reaching just three short of the cycle, then outscored Seattle, 13-4, to end in much better shape.
Guerrero is currently 13-for-28 (.464 batting average), with four home runs, 10 RBIs, and just one strikeout this postseason. And the Blue Jays now lead this ALCS by just 2-1 thanks to one swing and one superstar.
“Oh, that was a big swing by Andres,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said of Jimenez’s game-tying two-run hit in the third inning.
Oh, that was so reversed:
With this score, the Mariners defeated the Blue Jays again with a two-run home run by Julio Rodriguez, taking a 2-0 lead and a 3-0 lead against the ALCS in sight.
The Blue Jays’ offense was sluggish, with only eight hits in 61 at bats and no extra-base hits in Games 1 and 2.
The atmosphere, to say the least.
After Jimenez’s outburst started a five-run outburst, Toronto suddenly became unstoppable and the rally resumed as Guerrero hit a 165 mph liner into the left-field wall, a wild pitch and Dalton Varsho’s two-run double to eventually extend the lead to 5-2.
Amazingly, it all started with Jimenez simply attempting to send Ernie Clement to third base on a grounder to right. He took Kirby’s fastball a little more than that.
“You know, what happened is OK,” Jimenez told reporters in Seattle with a laugh.
We won’t know until one, two, four more games have passed whether that swing turned this ALCS around. But that was certainly the case in the Toronto dugout.
“You have to trust everyone in that lineup, and when you tie the game like that, everything changed in that dugout,” Guerrero said in his postgame press conference.
There was flogging. Guerrero, George Springer, Alejandro Kirk and Addison Berger also joined Jimenez in celebrating the home run in deep blue La Gente del Barrio sport coats.
Shane Bieber, inspired by the fact that Rodriguez’s wish to “pick me up” after allowing a home run, was granted, pegged him at five. And now we have the curiosity of Max Scherzer, 41, pitching to win the series.
No one knows what will happen to the old man, but Schneider will sleep much better tonight knowing he woke up at T-Mobile Park.
For the team and its catalyst.
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