USA TODAY International Edition
DODGERS, UTLEY FORCE GAME 5
Nationals to pin NLDS hopes on ace Scherzer
The Los Angeles Dodgers have heard for years about their bloated payroll and their inability to parlay it into a championship. They have won the last four National League West crowns, and only once have they made it past the first round.
They might not advance this year either, but they still have a chance.
Pushed to the brink of an early elimination for the third year in a row, the Dodgers showed their fortitude Tuesday with a 6- 5 victory against the Washington Nationals that forced a Game 5 in their NL Division Series.
Chase Utley’s RBI single in the eighth capped a two- out rally that lifted the Dodgers after they had blown a three- run lead in the previous inning, wasting a gutsy start on three days’ rest by staff ace Clayton Kershaw.
“If anyone gives up on this team, they haven’t see us play a whole lot this year,” said manager Dave Roberts, whose club led the NL with 46 come- from- behind wins. “And it starts with what Clayton did — short rest and leaving it all out there. Everyone fed off that.”
Rich Hill apparently will get a chance to play a similar role in Thursday’s decisive matchup with Cy Young Award favorite Max Scherzer. Although Roberts would not publicly commit to the veteran left- hander, Hill said he was informed after Tuesday’s game that he would get the ball — only the second time he will have
ever started on short rest.
“This is why you play. There’s not hold- backs or anything like that,” Hill said. “I know it’s short rest, but physically I feel great.”
Kershaw’s line on the box score wasn’t great — five runs allowed in 62⁄ innings — perhaps deceiv3 ing some who didn’t watch the game into believing he had stumbled again in the playoffs. The reality was far different.
Pitching on three days’ rest for the fourth consecutive postseason, Kershaw struck out 11 and came within a strike of completing seven innings of two- run ball.
The Dodgers led 5- 2 in the seventh when, with two on and two outs, reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper engaged Kershaw in a dramatic eight- pitch at- bat. After fouling off a couple of 3- 2 fastballs in the mid- 90s, Harper walked to load the bases.
“Man, that’s what baseball is all about right there, a matter of will,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. “And Kershaw was on empty. We knew it. They knew it. Everybody knew it. That was some battle.”
It took three pitches for the Dodgers bullpen to spoil the work Kershaw had built over 110.
Reliever Pedro Baez, pitching for the third day in a row and for the fourth time of the series, hit Jayson Werth with his first offering to force in a run. He was replaced by Luis Avilan, and Daniel Murphy greeted him by lacing a 1- 0 fastball to left for a two- run single that tied the score 5- 5. Joe Blanton, the inning’s third reliever, finally quelled the uprising by striking out Anthony Rendon with runners on first and third.
The Dodgers had knocked Washington starter Joe Ross out of the game with a two- run outburst in the first — powered by Adrian Gonzalez’s homer with a runner on — and another one in the third, which Kershaw started with a leadoff double. Each rally was a response to single runs by the Nationals, each driven in by Murphy, who is batting .462 this series and set a team record with a four- RBI game.
Until Utley’s heroics, with the exception of Joc Pederson’s runscoring double in the fifth, the Dodgers were again silenced by Washington’s relievers, who did not even allow a runner past first base in the final 42⁄ innings of Monday’s Game 3.
Blake Treinen got the first two outs of the eighth before hitting Andrew Toles with a pitch, then yielding a pinch- hit single to Andre Either, setting the stage for Utley. The 14- year veteran ripped a single to right, then helped closer Kenley Jansen complete a 12- 3 save with a sparkling defensive play for the game’s final out, charging Harper’s slow roller and shoving the ball to first with his glove.
Afterward, Utley paid Kershaw a compliment by comparing him to Roy Halladay, his former Philadelphia Phillies teammate known for his rigorous preparations.
“He’s intense. He’s a competitor,” Utley said of Kershaw. “He’s extremely fun to play behind.”
Kershaw acknowledged he was mentally and physically exhausted, betraying some regret that he had failed to get out of the seventh with the lead intact.
“I felt really, really good about it until the last, like, four minutes,” he said of his performance. “It’s a weird feeling more than anything. You kind of have to swallow your pride a little bit, realize we won the game, be excited about it. We get to go back to D. C.”