Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2020: "The Un-Perfect Storm"

 

MARCO’S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2020: “THE UN-PERFECT STORM”

Los Angeles Dodger Manager Dave Roberts post-game comment to the media after Game 4 of the World Series with the Tampa Bay Rays: “It was an un-perfect storm.”

To tell you the truth, Game 4 of the 2020 World Series, (aka Year of the Virus) was a great ballgame to watch. The lead changed hands nearly every half inning...there were home runs all over the place... and the game ended with an all time Epic Goat Rope of a Botch-Job Crazy Ass play. Or, as Roberts so aptly described it...an un-perfect storm.

Now, if the Los Angeles Dodgers had gone on to lose the World Series to the tenacious Tampa Bay Rays, that play would go down as one of those special Series-defining plays that fix baseball history in our heads:

1926: Old Pete Alexander comes in with a hangover and strikes out Tony Lazzeri with bases loaded to lead St. Louis over Yankees .

1932: The Babe calls his shot as Yanks trample Cubs.

1936: Tiger fans trash Medwick in the outfield as St.Louis Gashouse Gang triumphs.

1960: Bad hop grounder hits Kubek in throat—Mazeroski cashes it in.

1988: Gibby walks it off.

As it is, this play will fade from memory because it didn’t lead to a fateful turnaround in the fortunes of the Rays. But it could have. It could have entered the pantheon of Dodger Disasters. (You Dodger fans may want to take a few deep breaths before you read this part).

1916: They were the Brooklyn Robins then, and were no match for the Boston Red Sox, who featured a young leftie pitcher named Babe Ruth (Series ERA: 0.64). Lost 4 games to 1.

1920: First series after the Black Sox scandal of 1919 broke, which had Tris Speaker’s Cleveland Indians performing all kinds of “firsts”. First grand slam in a series, first homer by a pitcher, only triple play in series history...all at the expense of the hapless Robins. Lost 5 games to 2.

1941: It was the year of Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hitting streak and Ted Williams’ .406 masterpiece of a season. The Series, however, is remembered for the horrible thing that happened to catcher Mickey Owen in Game 4.

The Yankees were up 2 games to 1 and losing by a 4-3 score in the ninth inning. Brooklyn (now the Dodgers) had Hugh Casey on the mound, dealing goose eggs since the fifth inning.

The game was being played in the burrough of Brooklyn, and the faithful fans were ready to celebrate when the first two Yankee hitters made out. With Tommy (Old Reliable) Henrich swinging, Casey strikes him out on a dandy curve ball (some say spit ball) in the dirt. Hooray! Series tied 2-2! We’ll moider ‘em tamarrah! Whoops! Owen drops the third strike and it rolls to the backstop. Henrich is safe at first. Next hitter DiMaggio...single. Then King Kong Keller...double off the right field wall. Bill Dickey walks. Joe Gordon doubles to left...that was a quick 4 run rally folks. The Bums is dead. Down 3 games to 1 they go meekly the next day...the beginning of a decade and a half of World Series frustration. (21 year old Pee Wee Reese was in his first full season as the Dodger shortstop...he would be on the losing side in 5 more series vs. the Yankees) Lost 4 games to 1.

*You can watch the disaster unfold here*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anJzGIVapAA

1946: Brooklyn finishes season tied with the St. Louis Cardinals who beat them in the 3 game playoff.

Lost 2 games to 0.

1947: A couple of heroic moments had the Brooks thinking that the worm had turned against the Yanks. In Game 4, New York pitcher Bill Bevens had a no-hitter going in the ninth (albeit with 10 walks) when, with 2 on and 2 out, Cookie Lavagetto pinch hit a double off the right field wall for the 1 hit Bevens allowed...and the game winner. In Game 6, Joe DiMaggio, again with 2 on and 2 out, bombed one to the 415 foot mark in left where Al Gionfriddo caught it while smashing into the bullpen fence. It was a famous moment because DiMaggio actually displayed emotion on the field when he kicked the dirt in disappointment. But New York won Game 7 anyway and neither Bevens, Lavagetto nor Gionfriddo ever played another major league game. Lost 4 games to 3.

*For more visuals...*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2aSI0u7F3A

1949: The Boys of Summer were now assembled. Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, Don Newcombe and Roy Campanella joined established stars Reese, Furillo and Jackie Robinson to form one of the all time great lineups. But they still couldn’t deal with the Yankees, in their first year with Casey Stengel platooning like crazy. Lost 4 games to 1.

1950: Lost the pennant to the Philadelphia Phillies Whiz Kids on the last day of the season when Dick Sisler hit an extra inning 3 run homer against them.

1951: Had a 13 1/2 game lead in August but wound up losing to the Giants in a 3 game playoff when Bobby Thompson hit “The Shot Heard Round the World” to overcome a 4-1 Dodger lead in the ninth.

Lost 2 games to 1. (Some 50 odd years later it finally came out that the Giants had employed an illegal signalling system using a coach with binoculars stationed in the centerfield scoreboard at the Polo Grounds to flash what pitch was coming to the Giant hitters. A weird parallel with the now acknowledged fact that the Houston Astros also cheated to beat the Dodgers (and other teams) in the 2017 Series.)

1952: “It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’: (Johnny Tillotson). Took a 3-2 game lead into Ebbets Field for the last 2 games against the Yankees and still... Lost 4 games to 3.

1953: Lost 4 games to 2. To the Yankees again. Do you sense a trend yet?

1955: “Man Bites Dog” is the headline in the paper when the Brooklyn Bums finally defeat the Bronx Bombers. High water mark for the Brooklyn version of the Dodgers. Won 4 games to 3.

1956: “A Return to Normalcy”. The boys get Perfect-oed by Don Larsen in Game 5 and get 3-hit by Johnny Kucks in Game 7. Lost 4 games to 3.

1957: The Dodgers last season in Brooklyn. The last game at Ebbets Field was played in front of only 6000+ fans. Duke Snider hit the last homer at the ballpark...his 40^th. Sandy Koufax threw the last pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers on Sept. 29 at Philadelphia. The Dodgers finish third.

1958: Dodgers move to Los Angeles, become one of baseball’s two richest teams. Brooklyn is still heart broken.

1959: The season finishes with a tie at the top between the Milwaukee Braves and you know who. There have been 4 playoffs in the National League before 1969 when the division system started...the Dodgers have been in all of them. 1959 was the only one they won, and the heroes were Larry Sherry, an unheralded relief man who came up from Spokane, and three of the Boys who came west with the team and struck a blow for the snakebit. After winning Game 1, the Dodgers are down 5-2 in their bottom of the ninth in Game 2. Duke Snider and Gil Hodges get hits and Carl Furillo hits a sacrifce fly to tie the game. They win in the twelfth when Hodges is on second with 2 outs and Furillo’s hard grounder up the middle causes Felix Mantilla to throw past first base and allow Hodges to score... L.A. goes to its first World Series. Won 2 games to 0.

1959: Maybe the demons who have tormented the Dodgers with so many near misses and horrible defeats snatched from the jaws of victory etc. have finally been satiated. The Dodgers walk over the Chicago White Sox in 6 games. L.A. bleeds blue.

1962: On the other hand, maybe that old Brooklyn bad luck was just marshalling its forces for the debacle of 1962, a playoff repeat of the Giants-Dodgers wars of the East Coast era.

Ahead all year with Maury Wills setting a stolen base record, the Dodgers lose 10 of their last 13 to blow a 4 game lead over the Gigantics. Sandy Koufax had gone out in July with a circulation problem and is rusty when he starts Game 1. He lasts 1 inning and the Giants go on to win 8-0 with Mays hitting 2 homers.

Game 2 is one of the great games in baseball history. Drysdale gets knocked out in the sixth and the Dodgers look dead in the water down 5-0, not having scored in 36 consecutive innings. Suddenly they score 7 runs in the bottom of the sixth. The Giants come back to tie with 2 in the eighth but lose in the ninth on 3 walks and a short fly to center that scores Wills just ahead of a great throw by Willie.

Game 3. Johnny Podres, the hero of the ‘55 series, against Juan Marichal, The Dominican Dandy. 3 throwing errors have the Dodgers down 2-0 early. It’s 2-1 when the Giants load the bases on 3 singles in the sixth, but Ed Roebuck comes out of the pen and shuts them down with no more runs. A Tommy Davis home run in the bottom of the frame has the Blue Team up 3-2 and in the seventh Maury Wills singles, steals second, steals third and scores on catcher Ed Bailey’s throw into left field. Going into the ninth it’s Dodgers 4 Giants 2.

Roebuck gives up a pinch hit single to Matty Alou and with one out walks McCovey and Felipe Alou to load ‘em up. Willie Mays hits a rocket off Roebucks torso to bat in 1. That brings in a new pitcher, Stan Williams. Cepeda hits a sac fly to deep right to tie the game, and a wild pitch puts two runners into scoring position. Williams walks Bailey to set up the force all around. 45,693 fans are feeling that special kind of suffering only the Dodgers can deliver. Williams walks Davenport with the lead run, then defensive replacement Burright blows a ground ball by Jose Pagan for an insurance run. The Dodgers are out of comebacks and lose 6-4. Lost 2 games to 1.

1963: The bitter Playoff defeat of ‘62 could have crushed a lesser team, but the Dodgers were nothing if not resilient after living through their history. In fact, they were on their way to dominating the decade (along with the St. Louis Cardinals) in the National League. Koufax has learned to take enough off his fastball to keep it in the strike zone but it’s still too fast for the hitters. He also features a forget-about-it curveball to inflict additional pain. Don Drysdale is dominating and the offense features enough stolen bases and sacrifice bunts to win a bunch of 1-0 and 2-1 games.

The Hollywood Bums now face their familiar foe, the New York Yankees in the ‘63 series. Nolo Contendere. Dodger pitchers hold the Yanks to 4 total runs in a 4-game sweep. Meet the new Boss.

Won 4 games to 0.

1965: Will success spoil the Dodgers? Not as far as the Minnesota Twins are concerned. Koufax leads Team Freeway to a brilliant victory, shutting them out in the seventh game on 2 days rest and with a sore elbow that precludes the use of his curve. Won 4 games to 3.

1966: The Dodgers have won 4 of their last 5 World Series. But any hints of cockiness evaporate in a 4 game sweep at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles. L.A. is shut out in the last 3 games. They make 6 errors in Game 3 with Willie Davis making 3 in one inning out in center field. After the season, Sandy Koufax, (who won the pitching triple crown with 27 wins, 317 Ks and a 1.73 ERA) retires with an arthritic elbow. Maury Wills is traded to the Pirates and Tommy Davis to the Mets. The Dodgers are moving on. Lost 4 games to 0.

1974: Los Angeles against Oakland. The first all-West Coast Series. And one of least notable series of all time. (the Series MVP was Oakland’s second sacker Dick Green who goes...0 for 13! Okay...he has a terrific defensive presence.) 4 of the games finish 3-2 with the A’s winning 3 of them. But the Dodgers never seem that close. They couldn’t get the big hits late. This was their first Series featuring their infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey. Lost 4 games to 1.

1977: The Dodgers do their best to re-promote the Yankees as the Big Dogs of Baseball by giving up 3 home runs to Reggie Jackson in Game 6. Lost 4 games to 2.

1978: L.A. wins the first 2 games in California then does the El Foldo as the Yankees batter them around. Lost 4 games to 2.

1981: This year was analogous to this Covid Season we’ve just been through. The players went out on strike and the whole middle of the season was lost. In the re-jiggered Playoffs, the Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos 2-1 behind their rookie pitching phenom Fernando Valenzuela and Rick Monday’s “Blue Monday” 2-out homer off Steve Rogers in the ninth.

They go on to spank the ever-present Yankees in a direct mirror image of the ‘78 series. This time the Yanks win the first 2 games at home and then lose 4 in a row to L.A. Won 4 games to 2.

1988: You remember this one. Kirk Gibson limping out of the dugout and creating a whole new wing in the pantheon of Greatest Baseball Moments? That one at bat dominates the Series, even though Orel Hershiser is the stud that gets the team over the highly favored Oakland A’s in 5 games. It’s a Big, Big Series for the Dodgers…Won 4 games to 1.

...and its good thing because it’s had to last them 32 years! Hard to believe that the National League’s second most dominant team of the ‘40’s (3 Series... 1 behind St. Louis), most dominant in the ‘50’s (5 Series), ‘60’s (3 Series... tied with Cardinals), and second best in the ‘70’s (3 Series...1 behind Cincinnati) hasn’t made it back to the ultimate challenge until 2020! But that’s what the Playoff Era has wrought. So many ways to lose.

All teams suffer disappointment. It’s written into the Law of Averages. Especially perrenial contenders like the Dodgers. I mean, they’ve been to the Big Show 21 times! That’s 21 opportunities to Screw Up in front of a large number of viewers. Which they have done 14 times. Since 1916, the year of the first Dodger Series appearance, the Boston Red Sox have been 10 times and blown it 4 times. So would you rather have been to the Show and gone 7-14 or 6-4?

But if you add up the truly painful moments, the Dodgers win going away. It’s one thing to get beat...it’s another to get crunched when you look like a winner. 1941,1950,1951,1962, and not to mention the Joe Morgan home run that let the Giants knock them out of the division win in 1982, the Ozzie Smith walk off homer to win Game 5 of the 1985 Playoffs followed by the 3-run Jack Clark shot the next game that eliminated L.A. And the curious case of world beater Clayton Kershaw getting hammered in the clutch in multiple Playoffs, especially the back to back homers he gave up to the Red Sox in 2018...

2020 was the eighth straight year of the Dodgers winning the Western Division of the National League. And so, to celebrate, they came up with one of the wackiest and most painful ways to lose a game they had in hand ever seen upon the Hallowed Diamond of Our Dreams. Presenting…

“The Un-Perfect Storm.”

The Situation: Dodgers up 2 games to 1 playing in their home-away-from-home park, the new sliding dome thingie they’ve built in Arlington, Texas for the Strangers. (They’ve given it the drab corporate- purchased name “Globe Life Field”. They should call it The Globular Metroplex Ten Dollar Hot Dog Stand.) The Dodgers played their first three Playoff rounds in the same park...a big advantage over the Rays. If the Dodgers win this one, they have Kershaw going in Game 5 knowing that 40 of 46 teams all time have won the Series after going up 3 games to 1.

Justin Turner and Corey Seager homer early and the Bluebloods keep the lead despite dingers from Hunter Renfroe and Randy Arozarena. The latter seems to be the reincarnation of the Toy Cannon, Jimmy Wynn.

Jimmy was a vastly underrated hitter for the Astros (and the Dodgers for 2 good years in ‘74 and ‘75). He hit taters in a brown rice era and he hit them in the Astrodome...where extra base hits went to die.

The Cannon was 5’10” 160 pounds. Arozarena is listed at 5’11” and 185 and just hit an unreal 10 circuit clouts in 86 plate appearances in the Playoffs. He hit them out everywhere in the park. The guy must have wrists like steel cables because he was just flicking balls into the right field seats. That’s some pretty impressive yardwork.

In the sixth, the so-called “best” hitter on the Rays, second baseman Brandon Lowe, hits a go-ahead 3 run shot to left field. (A leftie hitter, Lowe had slumped through the whole Playoffs until he found his opposite field stroke with 2 big flies in Game 2.) But of course, L.A. comes back with a clutch 2-run single by Joc Peterson in the top of the seventh. Tampa ties it in the bottom of the seventh with a moon shot to right by Kiermaier.

The Rays bring in yet another reliever in the eighth...(it doesn’t matter who...they’re all 6’7” with beards and 98mph fastballs.) This one gives up a 2-strike, 2-out single to Series MVP Seager to give the Dodgers a 1-run lead of 7-6 with their once ironclad but now rusty-hinged closer Kenley Jansen coming on.

Kenley strikes out pinch hitter Joshi Tsutsugo whose name will never make the papers until somebody can spell it. It’s right up there with Bill Wambsganss (of the old Cleveland Indians who turned the unassisted triple play in the 1920 Series vs. the Brooklyn Robins, remember? Everything comes around eventually!) Kiermaier singles and pinch hitter Joey Wendle, who has played marvelous defense at third base and shortstop in the Series, continues his offensive frustrations with a liner to left. So two outs and look who is up...Randy “Steel Cables” Arozarena!

This is interesting! The next hitter is Brett Phillips who pinch ran for Ji-Man Choi (a joy to watch Choi!) in the eighth. But he’s a leftie and Kenley is a rightie. Should the Dodgers walk the menace that has become Arozarena and take their chances with a bench warmer whose last at bat was back in September? Or pitch to Arozarena with the rightie to rightie advantage? Or bring in a leftie to get the advantage on Phillips, who is the last hitter available except for the emergency catcher Perez? (Kenley has pitched to the prescribed 3 hitters, thus fulfilling his minimum batters-faced mandate with the new rule).

Dave Roberts decides to pitch to Arozarena and take the chance. I think it’s a mistake. Roberts was risking:

A: losing the game outright by letting the hottest hitter on the Rays beat him.

B: letting Kenley throw a ball in the dirt that advances Kiermaier into scoring position and still have to get Arozarena out or decide to walk him or not all over again.

I think with a hitter that hot you have to take the chance on an undoubtedly rusty bench player like the now famous Brett Phillips.

So Arozarena puts together a cool-headed at bat that ends in a 7-pitch walk. 2-on, 2-out. Here comes Phillips, whose mother must have held him by the heel and dipped him into the River Styx to imbue him with impervious immortality when he was yet a Babe.

He takes ball inside. Then a strike high inside, just barely. Phillips winces at the unfairness of it all. Now another strike, this one outside corner and very close to ball 2. Phillips is getting no help from the ump. Now Kenley has him in jail, but he throws a not-cutting cutter belly button high and almost down the middle of the plate...Phillips pounces on that pitch like the proverbial wolf on a lamb chop.

It’s a liner to short right center! Kenley Jansen sinks to his knees in horror. Chris Taylor, playing center field with Bellinger slightly injured and at DH for the day, scoops the ball and comes up looking at the runners to see where they are. Kiermaier got his jump and is going to score for sure. That’s the tieing run. But Arozarena also got the 2 out jump on that hit and Taylor wants to keep him from going to third (it looks like). Anyway, Taylor takes his eye off the ball and it slips out of his glove webbing and rolls about fifteen feet away toward first base.

Arozarena sees the error and charges around second headed for third. Taylor picks up the ball about the time Arozarena hits third base with the coach sending him all the way. Taylor fires the ball to his cut off man, Max Muncy, who has dutifully stationed himself between first base and the mound, like the good first baseman that he is. A good relay throw will nail Arozarena by twenty feet. It won’t be close. Perhaps sensing this, Arozarena stumbles and does a barrel roll up the third base line. But catcher Will Smith doesn’t notice. Eager to catch the relay throw, he slides up the first base line, which takes him AWAY from home plate. Muncy doesn’t see Arozarena because Kenley Jansen, totally at sea, has backed up toward the third base line and is standing right in front of Randy blocking Muncy’s view.

Muncy makes his throw to Smith a little too far to Smith’s right side..but that’s where Will had set up. Now, thinking that Arozarena is coming into the plate instead of doing his beached seal imitation half way home, he starts making his sweep tag and forgets to catch the ball first. There is no back up because Kenley, whose job it is, is still camoflaging Arozarena up the third base line. Randy scrambles to his feet and scores the winning run with an ever-to-be famous triple pat of precious home plate.

I’ve never seen anybody look so happy on a ball field. Outhouse to Penthouse in 3 seconds.

Let’s count the Bolixes: First up, Kenley’s pitch was terrible considering he was up 1-2 in the count. Way too good a pitch to a hitter who must have been ready to swing at anything close under the circumstances.

Then Taylor looking up before he secured the ball and making the first official error. That’s Bolix Number 2.

Then Jansen wallowing around on his knees on the mound instead of backing up either third or home. As soon as the ball left the infield the pitcher should be heading to back up third to protect from the winning run scoring on a bad throw to third. When he saw Taylor boot it, he should then have run to back up home before Arozarena made his turn and tried to score. Instead, Jansen backed up toward the third base line and stood there in No Man’s Land sucking his big stupid thumb, blocking his fielder’s vision. When Arozarena fell down he rumbled toward the plate very late. Bolixes 3,4,5 and 6.

Muncy’s relay throw was to the wrong side of the plate. Of course, that was where Will Smith was setting up for some reason. Bolixes 7 and 8.

Will Smith dropped the relay throw. Everybody who has ever played catcher or any infield position where you feel you have to hurry to tag the runner has made the same mistake of turning to make the tag before you catch the ball, but in that situation, with the runner supine on the grass, it looked bad...real bad. Bolix 9.

And for good measure, Bolix Number 10...Arozarena fell on his ass and should have been out like men’s garter socks.

After the game Kenley Jansen was full of excuses. (paraphrased) “It wasn’t my fault!” /“It was just luck.” /“Neither hit was hit hard.” /“It wouldn’t have mattered if I’d backed up home”. To which I answer in order: Whose fault was it then? The ghost of Mickey Owen? / That weak 1-2 pitch wasn’t luck...it was lack of skill. / And those soft hits were enough to beat you. / We’ll never know what might have happened if you’d backed up home...because you didn’t back up home you Putz. That was your only job in that situation and you didn’t do it!

That play would be hailed as one of the great Screw Ups of all time had L.A. gone on to lose that Series. But the Dodger pitching and 2-out hitting said otherwise and they triumphed, deservedly. I said going in that the Dodgers needed a big series from either Betts or Bellinger or both. They got very little from Bellinger, who fell in love with his uppercut-pull-everything-to-right swing and had yet another disappointing Series. Betts was a hero on defense and the bases but didn’t hit too much. He had a big double in Game 6 when Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled his starter after 73 pitches.

Blake Snell was sizzling in 5.2 innings, giving up two scratch hits and striking out 9, including the 3 best hitters for the Dodgers... Betts, Seager and Turner... 6 times. For some reason with Betts up and 2 on, Cash pulled Snell, who had the Dodgers offensively disfunctional, to let a right hander face Betts. Cash believes in the stats that say a hitter has the advantage when they’ve seen the same pitcher 3 times in a row. Well Snell had seen Betts twice and fanned him both times. He’s 0 for 5 vs. Snell with 4 K’s. Betts’ average against lefties this year? .205. How do those stats stack up against your precious no-third-time-through-the-order edict Kevin? Mr. Manager of the Year, Sir?

If we left it up to Kevin, there would never be another one-pitcher no-hitter in history.

Somewhere Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Nolan Ryan and Madison Bumgarner are laughing.

Also, when the Rays were starving for runs most games of the Series, why did Cash stick with Adames at short, Wendel at third and Zunino at catcher? The bottom of the lineup for the Rays was like a bottomless pit of outs. Adames struck out in every big situation. Wendel was sub-Mendoza as a third baseman and Zunino was Mr. K. All of them were great defensive players but why didn’t Cash at least try to let Wendel play more shortstop and get another good bat into his lineup? You can’t afford that much poverty in your ability to produce runs.

The Dodgers were the better team and they won. Off the snide after 32 years. Congratulations and always remember the immortal words of Brett Phillips (God’s Favorite) …

“BASEBALL IS FUN! WOW!”