Dodgers in 5

[Java]

Always hard to predict length.

but imo here is the basic key.  Torontos starting pitching and their top relievers are all right handed.  They are possibly the most right handed of all the playoff teams this year.

dodgers have faced a ton of lefties.   Almost exclusively.  Brewers manager altered his whole pen to make sure ohtani hit against lefties every time up.

when people were commenting about ohtani slumping it was that he was facing all lefties.  Not sure if the brewers pen was spent but in his 3 hr run he got to face righties the last two at bats and those were the mammoth drives.

back to la.  With freeman Muncy ohtani edman and maybe even Kim La hit much better against rhp.  200 points better of ops.

i think what we see is the LA offense come alive and score 5 6 7 8 runs a game and with the Dodger starting pitching Toronto just can’t keep up.   So LA in 5.

one thing about the World Series though is that something no one talks about is scouting. And scouting often wins the series.  In 88 the dodgers knew what Eck did in key counts.  So Gibson knew backdoor slider.   In 2024 la knew and played to the Yankees poor defense.   Sometimes teams pick up on sequences or pitch tipping.  Sometimes they bang a trash can and cheat.

so it’s possible the Toronto scouts unlock the cheat code of the Dodger starters and their offense goes off.  All things being equal though. If I am right about the lefty righty matchups the la offense will improve over the last two series.   Which means Toronto will have to be significantly better than the Philly or Milwaukee offenses.  I just wouldn’t bet on that

[Java]

As I noted above.  A key element it seems of World Series is scouting.  I felt Toronto had the perfect team and scouts for last night.  Make contact.  Plate discipline.  They actually looked a lot like the dodgers of 2017-2018.

dodgers have evolved with Shohei pages and teo and also kike into a lot more swing and miss than they used to be

 

dodgers had a chance to knock that starter out several times and couldn’t convert.  Freddie’s baserunning error blew up a potentially big inning.  Dodgers scored 4.  Which isn’t bad but isn’t great.

Toronto should have their greatest success against lefties.  So snell tubing up 2 in 6 before the blowup didn’t bug me that much.  His fastball command wasn’t there.

goal is to take one so we will have tonight to see about that.

wife was funny   Before the game she was all nervous   Asked me why I wasn’t   I said “we’ve been to the WS 5 times in 9 years  cheated out of 1-2   Won the last 2 and here for another   It’s a great run and dynasty   Nothing is really gained or lost by winning   Just adding to the legacy    Win and it’s historic   Lose and they’ll be back in the playoffs next year   It’s house money  why be nervous?”

 

afterward I explained that no one had repeated for 25 years because it’s hard   You need health  luck and a good matchup to win that much  in two years someone is bound to trip you up    No one has repeated from the NL since the 75-76 Reds   50 years ago   So again  it’s not easy even if the dodgers made it look  that way for a couple rounds

we will see how tonight plays out   Yamamoto worries me because I think he’s mentally fragile   But he’s a righty with sink   Toronto doesn’t Chase   It will be interesting for sure

not sure how much it matters but I though Snell got squeezed at the top of her strike zone 3-4 times   Didn’t help     But springer  bo bichette vlad and that fat dumpy catcher dude who doesn’t at all look like a player are all just solid contact guys that wear you out and get your pitch count up

 

ane pretty obvious the dodgers still have not solved their pen problems    Sheehan has not been the answer in the post season  and Banda for vesia there was also a loss

 

[Fraud]

Dodgers are in trouble. Toronto knows how to work the count vs the starters. We need clutch hitting from the top of the order and from that beaner fawk Pages.

[Java]

The formula is it can pulled off is

 

stretch and wear out dodger starters by looking at lots of pitches.  Get starter out of game by 5-6 inning.  This really can work well against glasnow who throws a lot of pitches anyway and rarely finishes 6-7 and may only get 4-5 here.  And ohtani who they’ve typically limited to 5.

Dodgers look good in the 9th and maybe Treinan is ok in the 8th.  Maybe.  But 5-6-7 they have a real problem that the blue jays can take advantage of.

dodger blew a huge opportunity against the Blue Jays starter yesterday. Instead of getting two runs they should’ve had about four or five and that would’ve changed the entire complexion of what came next

[Author]

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