October Ghosts Come Early for Dodgers
On Baseball
The Nationals seized Game 5, leaving the Dodgers dazed and discouraged.
LOS ANGELES — You could see the red taillights in the parking lots, out beyond the zigzag pavilion roof at Dodger Stadium, in the bottom of the 10th inning Wednesday night. It was the same scene in 1988, in the first game of the World Series, when the Dodgers trailed going into their final at-bat.
Those fans missed the famous Kirk Gibson home run that propelled the Dodgers to their last championship. These fans missed a quiet 1-2-3 inning, a pointless replay review, and a throng of delirious Washington Nationals celebrating their first trip to the National League Championship Series.
The Nationals were due for a night like this. Since their breakthrough season in 2012, they had won more games than every other major league team except the Dodgers, yet had never survived the division series. In the same time frame, the Dodgers had won four division series, and twice captured the N.L.C.S.
Now they are out, dazed and discouraged by a 7-3 loss in 10 excruciating innings in Game 5. The Nationals will face the St. Louis Cardinals for the right to crown a new N.L. champion — and the Dodgers will have more free time than usual in October.
“You’re thinking about how you’re supposed to be still playing,” reliever Kenley Jansen said. “You just don’t know what to do right now. It’s a shocking moment, and it’s not the way we planned it.”
Jansen saved 33 of the Dodgers’ franchise-record 106 victories this season. But he also blew eight save chances, and he is not the same force he was for most of the Dodgers’ seven-year run as division champions. Neither is Clayton Kershaw.
Kershaw served up homers to Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto to start the eighth inning, tying the game, 3-3. The Nationals won it off Joe Kelly, loading the bases on a walk by Adam Eaton, a double by Rendon, an intentional walk by Soto and a grand slam by Howie Kendrick.
“Some things are just destined to happen,” Kendrick said. “I truly believe that, and I think a lot of things lead up to moments like this. For some reason, you just can’t explain them. It’s almost like it was meant to be.”
Kendrick, a former Dodger, made the final out the last time the Dodgers lost in the division series, to the Mets in 2015. This time he took a star turn, and although Kelly gave up his homer, Kershaw took the blame for creating the tie in the first place.
Summoned to relieve Walker Buehler with two outs, two on and a two-run lead in the seventh, Kershaw fanned Eaton with a slider, the pitch that made him a star. But when he returned for the eighth, the slider deserted him: Rendon pulled a low one for his homer, and Soto drilled a hanger deep into the right field bleachers.
Kershaw crouched on the mound, felled again by postseason misery. For Kershaw in October, the ballpark might as well be a haunted mansion, the mound a bubbling caldron of witch’s brew. He cannot escape his ghosts.
“Everything people say is true right now about the postseason, I understand that,” Kershaw said in the clubhouse later. “Nothing I can do about it right now. It’s a terrible feeling. It really is. But I’m not going to hang my head.”
In 32 career postseason appearances, Kershaw is 9-11 with a 4.43 earned run average. He has had clutch moments, including a save in Washington to seal Game 5 of this round in 2016, and a win in his first World Series start in 2017.
But for a certain Hall of Famer — three Cy Young Awards, a Most Valuable Player Award, a 2.44 regular-season E.R.A. — autumn failure is a maddening tradition.
“Letting down the guys in the clubhouse, that’s the hardest part every year,” Kershaw said. “When you don’t win the last game of the season and you’re to blame for it, it’s not fun.”
Teammates consoled Kershaw by his locker, with hugs and whispered words of encouragement. Will Smith, the rookie catcher, said he told Kershaw how much he looked up to him, how he admired his competitive drive. Rich Hill, the veteran starter, insisted Kershaw should not blame himself.
“No — we wouldn’t be here without him,” said Hill, who paused to collect himself. “Ultimate respect for him. This means so much to everybody in this locker room. That’s the tough part. People say it’s just a game. It’s a lot more than that.”
Manager Dave Roberts was harshly criticized last October — even in a tweet from President Trump — for his pitching decisions in the World Series. He will face scrutiny again for the way he managed Game 5. His lefty specialist, Adam Kolarek, never pitched, and he stayed too long with Kelly, who rarely works more than one inning.
Roberts said he let Kelly face Kendrick because he thought he could induce a ground ball. Kelly said he tried, but his 97-mile-an-hour fastball caught too much of the plate. As for Kershaw, Roberts said he trusted a pitcher he called the best of his generation.
“I feel that my job is to put guys in the best position to have success, and if it doesn’t work out there’s always going to be second-guessing,” Roberts said. “And I’ve got no problem wearing the brunt of that.”
Kershaw said he had no blueprint for absorbing another empty October. He does so every fall, but this loss, perhaps, felt different.
“It might linger for a while,” Kershaw said. “I might not get over it, I don’t know. But spring training’s going to come. I’m going to have to be ready to pitch and do my job as best I can.”
The Dodgers were trying to become the first team since the 1923 Yankees to reach a third consecutive World Series after losing two in a row. They believed they had the roster to do it, and their regular season validated that faith.
But history remembers the teams that own October, and that team — year after year, for decades now — is not the Dodgers.
“We all grew so close as a group, and we all knew what we had,” infielder Max Muncy said. “We know that we’re better than what we showed out there. That’s how it ends.”
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