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You’ll Never Believe it, but the Dodgers Did Not Swing at Garbage Out of the Zone and Trounced the Mets
Published:
Let’s get it back to the NLCS:
The Dodgers through 5 innings tonight:
Saw 85 pitches
Swung at a total of 6 out of the strike zone.
Was that an inning’s worth of chases by the Phillies against the Mets?
Pretty sure you know that answer
— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) October 14, 2024
They scored six runs in those first five innings, en route to a 9-0 win, with three more tacked on in the bottom of the 8th. Really good at bats from the top of their lineup with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman combining for 5 hits, 5 RBIs, three walks, and zero strikeouts. And Teoscar Hernandez, who has been red-hot this postseason, worked two walks despite whiffing twice at the plate. The Mets started Kodai Senga again, who couldn’t locate anything, and used the bullpen to finish up the losing effort. The Phillies scored two against that group and the Dodgers scored nine. It just drives you crazy watching these other teams go out there and put together competitive at-bats, show patience at the plate, and lay off the obvious crap that’s thrown outside of the zone. They make the opposing pitchers throw strikes. And if they aren’t going to throw strikes, they’ll take the walks instead. LA had seven in this game alone, which was almost half of the 16 that the Phillies took in four total playoff games. Maybe next year they’ll figure it out.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com