Neither the Dodgers nor the Phillies expected simple National League division series this time around. Not with both teams coming in with what some call patchwork pitching. But one came out looking better in their Game 1 while the other came out looking like the remnant of a nuclear attack Saturday night.
The Phillies and their pitching managed to keep the Atlanta threshing machine from threshing Saturday afternoon, winning 3-0. Starting with a first-inning nuking of future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, the Diamondbacks laid waste to the Dodgers Saturday night, 11-2. On the arms of big enough bats and a starting pitcher who was usually close enough to Dodger batting practise.
Letting starter Ranger Suárez go no more than three and two thirds, knowing they'd have a day off between Games 1 and 2, the Phillies went to a bullpen game, essentially. And that bullpen finished what Suárez started, shutting the Braves out over the remaining five and a third. The Braves, who hit a record 307 home runs on the regular season, looked as though they had paper towel tubes for bats.
None more glaring than the founding father of the 40/70 club. Ronald Acuña, Jr. went 0-for-3 with a walk, and his evening's futility included an embarrassing called strikeout in the fifth, when — with first and third and one out — the second Phillies reliever of the evening, Seranthony Domínguez, planted a fastball right on the low inside corner.
Small wonder that Braves manager Brian Snitker could and did say, postgame, "I think it was more their pitching than our hitting." Indeed.
Braves starter Spencer Strider pitched boldly enough, striking eight out and scattering five hits in seven innings' work. But the Phillies still pried two runs out of him, both with Bryce Harper the big factor. First, Strider threw wild enough trying to pick Harper off first in the top of the fourth, enabling Bryson Stott to single him home with the first run. Then, Strider threw Harper enough of a meatball to disappear into the Chop House seats behind right field with one out in the top of the sixth.
"Strider, man, he's one of the best in the game. You know he's going to come at you and throw his best at you," Harper said postgame. "So just trying to get a pitch over and was able to get the slider up and do some damage."
Except for Acuña's surprising silence, and the eighth-inning catcher's interference call with J.T. Realmuto at the plate and the Phillies with the bases loaded, enabling the third Phillie run home, the Braves at least looked stronger in Game 1 defeat than the Dodgers did. Even Strider, who became the first postseason pitcher ever to lose twice against a team against whom he's well undefeated in the regular season.
The Diamondbacks didn't let Clayton Kershaw — all 35-years-old of him, with possible lingering shoulder issues plus eight days of rest leaving him with little enough to offer — get out of the first alive. Their 35-year-old journeyman starter Merrill Kelly, who didn't turn up in the Show until age 30 in the first place, manhandled them for six and a third after the Snakes bit Kershaw deep in the first.
For the regular season's final two months, with a 2.23 ERA over eight starts, Kershaw seemed to tell age and his shoulder alike where to stuff it. Then Kershaw took the ball Saturday night. What's the saying about too much rest being as hazardous to a pitcher as too little rest can be?
Ketel Marte opened with a double to the back of left center field, and Corbin Carroll began showing why he's in the Rookie of the Year conversation with a prompte RBI single. Tommy Pham — the same Tommy Pham who called out the lack of work ethic among second-tier Mets teammates with whom he played before the trade deadline — rapped a short single to left for first and second.
Then Christian Walker, a veteran first baseman who hadn't been anything much special before 2022, hit one so far to the back of the left field bleachers some wondered how the ball didn't leave the ballpark structure. Just like that, Dodger Stadium resembled a funeral parlour. And, just like that, Kershaw resembled the corpse for whom the audience came to mourn.
A ground out by Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. and a walk to Alek Thomas later, Evan Longoria sent Thomas all the way home with a double to deep center field, hammering the final nails into Kershaw's coffin.
"Embarrassing," the lefthander said postgame. "You just feel like you let everybody down. The guys, a whole organization, that looked to you to pitch well in Game 1. It's just embarrassing, really. So I just feel like I let everybody down. It's a tough way to start the postseason. Obviously, we still have a chance at this thing, but that wasn't the way it should've started for me."
Kershaw's postseason history is a direct contrast to the regular-season career that guarantees him a place in Cooperstown. Until Saturday night, enough of that sad history came by way of leaving him in too long or by circumstances above and beyond his control.
Entering Game 1 with a 5.49 ERA against the Dodgers lifetime but a 7.03 ERA against them when pitching in Dodger Stadium, Kelly pitched six and a third shutout innings before turning it over to a bullpen that kept the Dodgers to one hit. The bad news: the hit was a two-run triple by Will Smith off Miguel Castro. The good news: the Snakes could afford such generosity by then, since it cut an 11-0 lead by a measly 2 runs.
Kelly's keys included forgetting how the Dodgers treated him like a piñata in regular season play. "I'm watching our guys beat up on one of the best pitchers that we've ever seen in our lives and watching them do it in the first game I've ever pitched in the playoffs," he said postgame. "I felt if I gave those games any attention I was going out there behind the eight-ball before I even stepped on the mound."
This time, Kelly went out there with a 6-run cushion, then saw it padded to 9 by a 3-run second including Carroll leading off against Dodger reliever Emmet Sheehan with a drive into the right field bleachers. Kelly was now comfortable enough that he could have pitched from a high-backed leather office chair and incurred no damage.
The only thing that should have and apparently did embarrass the Braves was the Truist Park crowd throwing drinks onto the field after catcher Sean Murphy's mitt grazed Realmuto's bat by a thin hair. You could hear it on replays that didn't exactly show it too clearly, but Murphy's lack of challenging the call affirmed it.
Trea Turner — who started a spectacular double play with Acuña (leadoff walk) on third to end the bottom of the eighth, diving left for Ozzie Albies's ground smash and backhanding to second baseman Stott — scored on the interference. The rain of drinks into the outfield annoyed both the Braves and their manager.
"There's no excuse for that," Snitker snapped postgame. "It's scary because those water bottles, when they come, they're like grenades. It could really seriously injure one of our players."
That's what the miscreants don't stop to think about. Against a team whose fan base is usually considered one of the worst in the game. (Remember the Philadelphia wedding: the clergyman pronounces the happy couple husband and wife before telling the gathering, "You may now boo the bride.") Be better, Braves fans.
Only the silence in Dodger Stadium following the Diamondbacks' early and often abuse of Kershaw and Sheehan kept the big National League division series headlines elsewhere from reading, "Chop Slop."
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