OC Register: Whicker: One homer beats four strikeouts – the story of the Dodgers, and baseball in 2018

AngelsWin.com · October 1, 2018

The Dodgers’ Cody Bellingers watches the flight of his two-run home run during the fourth inning of their 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies in Monday’s NL West tiebreaker at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger hits a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger follows through after hitting a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 01: Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers hits a two run homerun to take a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies during the National League West tiebreaker game at Dodger Stadium on October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers watches his two run home run against the Colorado Rockies along with teammate Yasiel Puig (66) in the fourth inning of a National League West tiebreaker Major League Baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG) Justin Turner #10 of the Los Angeles Dodgers
Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers watches his two run home run against the Colorado Rockies in the fourth inning of a National League West tiebreaker Major League Baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG) Justin Turner #10 of the Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger watches the flight of his two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Colorado Rockies starting pitcher German Marquez, left, looks away as Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger celebrates as he rounds the bases after his two-run home run during the fourth inning of their 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies in the NL West tiebreaker on Monday afternoon at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger celebrates his two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger celebrates his two-run home run during the fourth inning of a tiebreaker baseball game against the Colorado Rockies, Monday, Oct. 1, 2018, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates after hitting a two run home run against the Colorado Rockies in the fourth inning of a National League West tiebreaker Major League Baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG) Justin Turner #10 of the Los Angeles Dodgers
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 01: Cody Bellinger #35 is greeted by Max Muncy #13 of the Los Angeles Dodgers as he crosses the plate after hitting a two run home run in the fourth inning of the game against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates with teammate Max Muncy #13 after hitting a two run home run against the Colorado Rockies in the fourth inning of a National League West tiebreaker Major League Baseball game at Dodger Stadium on Monday, October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG) Justin Turner #10 of the Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger, left, celebrates with teammate Max Muncy after hitting a two-run home run during the fourth inning of Monday’s NL West tiebreaker game against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. Muncy added his own two-run homer later in game. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG) Justin Turner #10 of the Los Angeles Dodgers
LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 01: Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after his two run homerun to take a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies during the National League West tiebreaker game at Dodger Stadium on October 1, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
The Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger celebrates with teammates Yasiel Puig, center, and Manny Machedo after hitting a two-run home run during the fourth inning of Monday’s NL West tiebreaker game at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Cody Bellinger #35 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates in the dugout after his two-run home run in the fourth inning of the Dodgers’ 5-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies in the N.L. West Tiebreaker at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Monday, October 1, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Sullivan, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — The time capsule of the 2018 major league season, and probably many seasons beyond that, was forged on the Dodger Stadium floor Monday afternoon.

The Dodgers struck out four times in the fourth inning. In the middle of doing that, they also won the game, and the National League West along with it, and the privilege of playing host to Atlanta in the NL Division Series, beginning Thursday, instead of hustling around the country like John Candy and Steve Martin.

They spared themselves a third game in three nights in a third city, Chicago on Tuesday. They will not have to face the big-game stylings of Jon Lester. They will not have to dredge up a starter. That becomes Colorado’s job. The atomic baseballs that Walker Buehler threw at the Rockies probably weren’t good practice.

The Dodgers celebrated, for the second time in 48 hours, and the losers quietly gathered themselves for a post-midnight landing.

And a decent crowd did show up, although not for the first pitch. The figure was 47,816. Obviously, the acres of empty seats at 1 p.m. fed the usual narrative about blase L.A., when the emptiness was shown on ESPN. But a Monday game on short notice, played merely for postseason leverage, will not sell out immediately. Not here.

The booming ovation for Buehler, when he left after 20 outs and just one single, was playoff-caliber.

“I’ve said it before, we’re going to see this kid for a long time,” said Bud Black, the Rockies manager. “He’s had our number. He had more strikeouts last time (12, with three hits over six innings on Sept. 19). His stuff was the same, 97 or 98 (mph), and we just couldn’t square up anything on him.”

But Colorado’s German Marquez has been just as hard on the Dodgers. He breezed through three innings with four strikeouts and one hit.

He began the fourth inning by striking out Max Muncy with a high, sizzling fastball that, fatefully, was also too hot for the handle of catcher Tony Wolters.

It clipped the top of his mitt and rolled to the wall, and Muncy hoofed it to first base, on a strikeout/passed ball.

Marquez then struck out Manny Machado and Yasmani Grandal. Cody Bellinger came up. He was 1 for 16 against Marquez.

“We were trying to get the pitch down,” Wolters said. “It stayed over the middle.”

Such pitches are rarely forgiven by a power-tripping club with 235 home runs, a franchise record.

Bellinger drilled it into the right-field pavilion and came around to body-bump Muncy behind the plate.

It was 2-0. Marquez ended the fourth by fanning Buehler.

In the fifth, Muncy lofted another bomb into the left-field pavilion, on a more purposeful pitch.

“That one really traveled,” Wolters said, recognizing that Dodger Stadium, at 90 degrees, isn’t terribly different from Coors Field. “It was like he barely touched it, and away it went.”

Marquez left one batter later, wondering why the referee stopped it.

His four-strikeout inning was the first in postseason play since Detroit’s Anibal Sanchez (who is with Atlanta and might start against the Dodgers) did it five years ago. It also gave Marquez 230 for the season, a Rockies’ franchise record.

But without the passed ball, we don’t know what happens.

That was the whole season right there, microwaved and ready, a numbing procession of swings and misses and longballs.

Black was asked if Marquez had crossed up Wolters by throwing something harder than Wolters was expecting.

“No, I think Tony was just a little late on it,” Black said.

He hadn’t checked with the principals.

“We got crossed up a little bit,” Wolters said. “I thought something off-speed was coming. You’re trying to be as perfect as you can. We had about 20 sign sets going on there.”

“I crossed him up, it happens,” Marquez said. “The pitch to Bellinger, that’s not where it was supposed to go.”

The Dodgers played a 163rd game against Houston in 1980, again for the Western Division, and lost it 7-1. It is still known for Tommy Lasorda’s refusal to start 19-year-old Fernando Valenzuela. Instead, he chose Dave Goltz, whom the Dodgers had signed as a free agent. Goltz wasn’t great, but Davey Lopes and Joe Ferguson made errors in the first inning, and Joe Niekro muffled the L.A. offense.

That game drew 51,127. Unlike this one, it was a knockout game, since there was no wild-card. And the Dodgers wound up 92-71. Just like these Dodgers.

Their plan looks like a lot simpler now, like the reductive game they’ve mastered.

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OC Register: Whicker: One homer beats four strikeouts – the story of the Dodgers, and baseball in 2018

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