They had them down. They let them up.
They squeezed them down to their last gasps. They backed off and gave them new life.
In any ordinary five-game playoff series, a team leading two-games-to-none can lose a game and maintain a clear advantage. But the heavyweight happenings here between the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies is no ordinary series. And by losing a potential clinching Game 3 Wednesday night at a stunned and boo-filled Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers are suddenly and dangerously close to blowing it.
The 8-2 defeat to the Phillies in the National League Division Series factually means the Dodgers still lead two-games-to-one with two more chances to close out their favored foe.
But realistically, the Dodgers now face a must-win Game 4 at Dodger Stadium Thursday, as a loss would return the series to Philadelphia Saturday for a deciding Game 5 at baseball’s toughest place to play.
Read more:Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dodgers quickly lose control in NLDS Game 3 loss to Phillies
Yes, the Dodgers won twice at Citizens Bank Park to start this series, but could they do it one more time? And, even with both Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell available, would they want to even try?
No, the season is realistically now riding on Thursday and Tyler Glasnow against Phillies’ ace Cristopher Sánchez because, on a long and frustrating Wednesday night, the Dodgers couldn’t get it done when they should have gotten it done.
Afterward Dodger manager Dave Roberts preached calm.
“It’s pretty close to being flushed already,” he said. “If you look back going into this series and said we’d be up 2-1, we would have banked it with Glas going in.”
He added, “I feel good with where we’re at… And it’s certainly flushed.”
But it was the Phillies who were supposed to be flushed. The Dodgers had every advantage. Their ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto was on the mound. Their offense was in full gear. The champagne was nearby. They even took a one-run lead after three innings on a Tommy Edman homer.
But Yamamoto blew up, and the Phillies blew past, and then Clayton Kershaw took the mound in the seventh inning and, sadly for the retiring star, things really got ugly.
By the time it ended, the once-unhittable Yamamoto had allowed three runs in four innings, the Hall of Famer Kershaw allowed four earned runs in two innings, and some notably struggling Phillies at the top of their order had gotten healthy.
Kyle Schwarber had two home runs including one that seemed to disappear off the right-field pavilion roof. Trea Turner had three hits. Bryce Harper had two hits. Two Phillies undercard pitchers, Aaron Nola and Ranger Suarez, allowed one run in seven innings.
Dodger fans were so upset with everything that many of them walked out after Kershaw got hammered in a five-run eighth inning.
It was ugly. It was awful. And now it’s a problem, because the once down-and-out Phillies are revived and refreshed and believing.
That’s trouble, that believing part, and before the game, two Dodgers warned about what happens when that happens.
“Obviously we want to finish this tonight, and we don’t want to let anything slip away from us,” Max Muncy said. “That’s one of those things, when you talk about momentum, if you don’t finish it tonight, you feel like it’s slipping away.”
Yeah, well, he’s right, now it’s slipping away.
Despite his postgame optimism, before the game Roberts warned of the same ominous signs.
“You have these guys on their heels, and you’re at home,” said the Dodger manager. “We expect a great, boisterous crowd. We have one of our aces on the mound. So the way we’re playing, we want to put these guys away and don’t let them up for air.”
Oh, they gave them plenty of air, beginning in the fourth inning when Schwarber led off with a 455-foot homer off the roof of the right-field pavilion. Then the Phillies’ piled on, a Harper single, an Alec Bohm single that scored Harper on a bad throw from center fielder Andy Pages, then a run-scoring fly ball from Brandon Marsh.
The Phillies pitching held, but their lead was still 3-1 when Kershaw dramatically took the mound in the seventh and survived a wild rally for one inning.
The Phillies put two runners on base against Kershaw on a Turner single and Schwarber walk, but, with the crowd roaring with every pitch, Will Smith picked off Schwarber and Kershaw survived the threat.
Then, an inning later, he didn’t, as JT Realmuto led off with a home run and the inning didn’t end until Schwarber had also homered again, sandwiched around a walk, a botched grounder by Muncy, and a single.
And to think, it all started so sweetly.
The evening began when World Series hero Steve Garvey threw out the first pitch and then, during the traditional pregame greeting, added an adjective by saying, “It’s time for Dodger championship baseball.”
Read more:Dodgers have no answers for Kyle Schwarber and Phillies in Game 3 loss
Spoke too soon?
The game’s honored veteran was 100-year-old World War II vet Jimmy Hernandez, and the standing ovation was one of the night’s loudest.
The ensuing game only felt like it lasted 100 years.
And now the Dodgers season has been rudely whittled to two more days.
Actually, one.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
