TORONTO — Dave Roberts said it after the Dodgers had swept Milwaukee in the National League Championship Series:
“Before this season they were saying the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball.”
Saturday night, this ruining baseball business was tough, time-consuming and tense. But evidently, the National Pastime will never be the same.
Kidding.
But if you want to refer to these Dodgers as a dynasty, as the first repeat World Series champions in 25 years, winners of three in six years and participants in five World Series over the last decade … who on earth can argue at this point?
And for all of their offensive woes over the last week, especially with men in scoring position, the way they stole this one was classic in itself.
The Toronto Blue Jays were five outs away from their first championship in 32 years. The fans’ pent up emotions were spilling over, with a 4-2 lead and the giddy anticipation of a parade of their very own.
And then Max Muncy hit a solo home run in the eighth, and the unlikeliest of souls, Miguel Rojas, hit his first of the postseason with one out in the ninth, and the champagne in the Toronto clubhouse remained on ice.
And Will Smith, postseason hero, put this game, and this season, on ice with his second home run of the postseason with two outs in the 11th inning, a shot down the left field line that officially traveled 366 feet but undoubtedly reverberated three time zones away, and probably was felt throughout baseball.
The Dodgers won this with Yoshinobu Yamamoto playing the part of Walker Buehler, a starter coming to the rescue with 2⅔ innings of scoreless relief. They won it despite going 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position on Saturday night, extending their output in such situations to 9 for 47 for the series, a .191 average. (That included a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the top of the 10th in which they were scoreless.
And yet they won a World Series. We can’t say it was improbable, but there were times during this series when it seemed that way. The Blue Jays were that good, and that tough and gritty and efficient.
The narrative all along, and the reference to which Roberts was referring, was the notion that the Dodgers’ payroll, $350,024,106 and first in the majors according to Spotrac, gave them a humongous edge over everybody else. (The New York Mets, of course, had almost as high a payroll and missed the postseason altogether. And, for what it’s worth, the Blue Jays’ payroll of $255,230,405 American, according to Spotrac, was No. 7 in the big leagues – and converts to $358,317,658 in Canadian dollars, which is what their players spend when they’re at home.)
Remember, too, that the Blue Jays are owned by Canadian heavyweight Rogers Communications. They were among those taking out ads imploring the Blue Jays to “bring it home.”
Instead, the Commissioner’s Trophy will be coming back to Southern California, and instead of a parade down Yonge Street, Toronto’s major thoroughfare, the double-decker buses will again be rumbling down Broadway in the next few days.
And if you want to crack that the supposed best team money could buy couldn’t buy a hit with runners in scoring position when they needed it most … well, in this case solo home runs count as clutch hitting, too.
And maybe we need to get beyond the payroll narrative.
Manager Dave Roberts was asked about it in his briefing before Saturday’s game. The Dodgers aren’t the only ones who spend large sums on payroll, obviously. But there are – there have to be – other ways to create an advantage.
“I think that people just overlook the fact that every year we probably have the top-five farm system in baseball,” he said. “This year I think we probably have the No. 1 or No. 2. We pick at the bottom of the draft every year, towards the bottom, and we still have young guys, whether by way of trade or development, that continue to help contribute.”
Player development, in other words, matters a lot. Skill at putting together a roster does, as well – and for all of the grief This Space has given President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and General Manager Brandon Gomes for the moves they didn’t make to add relief pitching help at the July 31 trade deadline, obviously it worked out.
“So on the business side,” Roberts continued, “I think that we do a great job of marketing our organization. So it’s pretty buttoned up. I think we have great people and obviously great ownership too.”
The Dodgers were a streaky team all season, romping to a big division lead through June, and spending the next three months spinning their wheels, largely because of that sometimes dysfunctional bullpen. They had some streakiness offensively, too.
And after storming through the first three rounds of the postseason – going 9-1 against the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and the Brewers – they struggled against a Toronto team that was fundamentally sound with a consistent offensive approach.
But there was some grit in these guys, too. They regrouped after losing Games 4 and 5 at home, and became the ninth team to win Games 6 and 7 on the road and with them the championship.
So they’ve made history, they’ve earned the right to be a dynasty … and if you want to start talking three-peat, go ahead. I suspect Pat Riley, credited with trademarking that term, won’t mind.
jalexander@scng.com
