When Can the Dodgers Play in the World Series Again
Dodgers three, Rays 1 | Los Angeles Wins Series, four-2
Dodgers Win the World Series Later on Years of Frustration
Mookie Betts delivered two runs in a Game six victory over the Tampa Bay Rays that sealed the franchise's first championship in 32 years.
As far as championship droughts go, this was not the longest in baseball history, or even the virtually disturbing.
Merely in terms of contempo effort, including nearly $2 billion spent on actor salaries in the past eight years, and the frustration of existence tantalizingly close to that celebratory sip of Champagne without actually tasting it, the Dodgers' 21st century title dry out spell had get the most prominent — and baffling — in baseball.
They won seven direct divisional titles without winning the World Series. They fabricated it to the Autumn Classic in 2017, only to lose at abode to a team that would afterwards be exposed as cheaters. And the very next twelvemonth they lost at abode again, to a team led by Mookie Betts, now roaming the outfield for Los Angeles.
Simply on their eighth consecutive trip to the postseason, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally became champions, once again. They beat the Tampa Bay Rays, three-one, in Game 6 of the World Series on Tuesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, as Betts hit a double and a home run and scored twice to aid the storied franchise end 32 years of disappointment.
It was the seventh title for the Dodgers, their sixth since moving to Los Angeles from Brooklyn in 1957, and the start for Dave Roberts equally a manager. The steady Roberts became merely the 3rd skipper to win a World Series with the Dodgers, joining the Hall of Famers Walter Alston and Tommy Lasorda, who was at the helm of the franchise's 1988 championship team.
When Game half-dozen concluded and all the pressure that had built upwardly on this core group of players was finally released, they exploded out of the dugout and onto the field to celebrate, knowing that they would no longer exist labeled choking underachievers.
"To know what it feels like to lose," said Corey Seager, who was named the Series' most valuable player, "and be able to rebuild and come back and rebuild and stay focused, it'due south special."
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The victory should help brand up for the perceived injustice of 2017, when the Dodgers lost Game 7 to the Houston Astros, a team that illicitly stole signs that year and admitted to the scheme after an investigation by Major League Baseball in 2019. The title besides should soothe the pain inflicted the following yr when the Cherry Sox, with Betts in their outfield, likewise won at Dodger Stadium, that time in Game 5.
And it surely quelled the anguish felt in 2019 when, after winning 106 games with a $205 million payroll, the Dodgers were bounced out of the playoffs — in one case again at home — in the commencement round by the eventual champions, the Washington Nationals.
This time was unlike: a postseason of unusual circumstances, the team sequestered for weeks in a playoff bubble in Texas, the players separated from their extended families and friends considering of the coronavirus pandemic. The touch of the contagion fifty-fifty overshadowed the celebrations afterwards Game 6, as information technology emerged that Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner had been removed from the game earlier the top of the 8th because he had received a positive examination result for the coronavirus.
But through all their postseason games, the Dodgers made Globe Life Field their own. They played 16 postseason games there and hit more home runs (29) in the new stadium than the regular residents, the Texas Rangers, who hit just 27 in their 30 games in that location this flavor.
The title reflected the Dodgers' dedication and commitment, but it also helped that they had Betts, whom they caused from the Red Sox in a trade in February.
"I was traded for for this reason," Betts said. "I'thou proud of myself and proud of the guys for accomplishing it."
The superstar correct fielder added a special dynamism and confidence to a lineup that was already stacked with stars like Seager, Cody Bellinger and Turner, the third baseman that the Mets gave up on before he went on to become one of the most dangerous hitters in the Dodgers' postseason history.
And it took Roberts to bring everything together. The Dodgers' managing director since 2016, Roberts helped his players block out the simmering pressure that built to a rolling boil over well-nigh a decade of frustration for a passionate fan base that never seemed to give up, packing Dodger Stadium regularly despite twelvemonth upon year of letdowns.
In his fifth flavour at the captain, Roberts directed the squad to the best regular-season record in the major leagues for the second time in his tenure and helped guide them dorsum from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series this month. But it all would have meant nil if the squad had failed in the World Series for a third fourth dimension in iv years.
Afterward the Dodgers finished off the Braves, Roberts stood at a podium and, with the crack of emotion in his voice, alleged: "This twelvemonth is our year. This is our year." He reiterated the same sentiment on Tuesday, this time with the World Series Trophy up there with him.
"I've never been around a group that is closer, tougher, and that I love more," he said, and so credited many of the current Dodger players who had suffered through the hard losses, similar Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen and Turner.
It was Roberts's arroyo, combined with a lineup of indisputable talent earning the 2nd-highest payroll in baseball (behind that of the Yankees), proved as well much for the Rays, a plucky, overachieving squad with a pre-pandemic opening 24-hour interval payroll of but $72 one thousand thousand, the 4th everyman in baseball.
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The Series went dorsum and forth through five games, simply in the 6th, the Dodgers proved their superiority and their resilience, rallying after falling behind in the showtime inning.
They scraped together two runs in the sixth inning to take the lead after Rays Manager Kevin Cash made a pitching change that will be debated for years.
Blake Snell, Tampa Bay'due south starter, was dominating the Dodgers and led, i-0, after five innings. He recorded the get-go out in the sixth, only after he gave upwardly a single to the No. 9 batter, Austin Barnes, on his 73rd pitch, Cash bounced out of the dugout and removed Snell in favor of Nick Anderson.
Snell'southward body language suggested he could not believe he was coming out, simply Cash had fabricated up his mind. He said he was concerned about the Dodgers catching upwards to Snell in their third at-bats confronting him, even though Snell had struck out Betts, Corey Seager and Turner twice each.
Asked if he regretted the move, Cash said, "Yeah I guess I regret information technology because it didn't work out. Simply the thought process was right."
The results were not. When Betts saw Snell exit, he looked at Roberts in the dugout and gave him a niggling grinning.
"We were all just kind of excited that Snell was out of the game," Roberts said.
Betts hit a double off Anderson, who then threw a wild pitch, allowing Barnes to score as Betts went to third. He then scored on a fielder's choice.
Betts's homer came off Pete Fairbanks in the 8th inning, and as he pumped his fist while rounding the bases, decades of Dodger frustration seemed to melt away.
Their ability to bounce dorsum over the years was encapsulated within this postseason, including the N.Fifty.C.S. and the World Series. The Dodgers had lost in shocking way on Game iv on Saturday, when the Rays scored ii runs on a pair of fielding mistakes with two outs in the ninth inning.
But Los Angeles came back to win Game v the next day backside Kershaw, their star bullpen who has faced criticism in contempo years for failing to reproduce his regular-flavour success when the calendar turned to October, and Kershaw won both of his Series starts to become a champion for the first time.
"I'thou so happy for my wife, the sense of relief that we finally did information technology," Kershaw said, "and for my whole family, and the people that are happy for me. It's overwhelming simply to meet the back up."
It was as well the first title for Andrew Friedman, the onetime general manager of the Rays and the president and architect of the Dodgers for the past 6 years.
Freidman's chore was to spend lavishly, to win at about any cost, and the Dodgers were consistently in a position to do exactly that. It took a lilliputian longer than expected, but Roberts sensed their time had come up.
"I had a crazy feeling that came to fruition," he said. "I simply knew that we weren't going to be denied this year."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/sports/baseball/world-series-game-6.html
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