Dodgers 3 Mets 1 They Won A Must Win

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Clayton Kershaw had an absolutely dominant outing to say the least. I get it that the legacy talk before the game was prevalent, and to be fair if Kershaw didn’t SHOVE without any caveats . Well, he didn’t!

Kershaw gave up a solo home run to Daniel Murphy in the bottom of the 4th inning who is one of the only Mets to have Clayton’s number this entire series but everything else was “best pitcher on the planet” worthy. He went 7 IP 1 ER 8 K 1 BB 94 pitches and gave the Dodgers an excellent chance to win a game that they absolutely had to win.

Not that there wasn’t drama in the game, whoa boy was there drama. 8th inning shenanigans most specifically but high leverage situations were plentiful.

The game started out innocently enough with Clayton Kershaw and Steven Matz exchanging 0’s going into the 3rd inning, but the Dodgers had some fun with Matz in the 3rd frame, Clayton Kershaw, reigning league MVP started the rally by singling to left center field. After a Enrique Hernandez fielders choice, Howie Kendrick singled to move Hernandez over to 3rd and then Adrian Gonzalez drove him home with another single to Juan Lagares. Justin Turner then came up and hit the decisive double to drive in 2 Dodger batters.

Sooo Clayton Kershaw had something that he rarely has during playoff starts: runs to work with!

He mowed down Mets batters and besides the 1st inning (where he threw 18 pitches) he was efficient he got through the dreaded 7th inning (not without some drama caused by an Yoenis Cespedes infield single) and he won a postseason game.

Breath a heavy sigh of relief because this is the exact line that Clayton needed.

This win isn’t without some trepidation, I mean they scored 3 runs in 3 innings and were 1 hit by the Mets after Matz was lifted after the 6th inning and Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher the Dodgers have faced this series, so woof good luck with that!

Anyways on that 8th inning…

I have no more fingernails and the soulpatch part of my beard is gone from biting the hairs because Chris Hatcher and Kenley Jansen did a bad job of holding down the fort it seemed like. Chris Hatcher walked Curtis Granderson who has been quite the pest this series. Hatcher got the boot and David Wright then forced Kenley Jansen to face Daniel Murphy after walking.

Murphy has killed the team all series. He is the grittiest player on the field and looked like he hit a Jansen cutter 500 feet into the right center field bleachers. By some miracle he got under it and Yasiel Puig snagged the fly ball to keep things going.

Jansen didn’t have another heart stopping inning, he struck out the first two batters with minimal resistance and then Lucas Duda flew out to real Center Fielder, Joc Pederson to end the game.

I am very scared for the game on Thursday, but Zack Greinke going with an elimination game at home? This is a game that the Dodgers should absolutely win! Have fun trying to get through the next couple of days, but really enjoy this win because these kinds of games make rooting for this team worth it.