Alexander: Dodgers’ bullpen game not enough in NLCS opener

Best laid plans, and all that.

For eight-plus innings, it did go according to plan for Manager Dave Roberts and the Dodgers in suburban Atlanta on Saturday night. They utilized another bullpen game, and the relievers mostly did their jobs. And they had the go-ahead run apparently headed to third base in the ninth inning, and maybe visions in their heads that with Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler and Julio Urías ready to pitch the next three games, this series with the Braves would not be coming back to Cobb County.

Baseball is humbling. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you don’t.

Chris Taylor made the third out of the ninth inning between second and third because, well, indecision can kill you. Taylor rounded second but stopped about a third of the way between the bases on pinch-hitter Cody Bellinger’s single to right, mainly because former teammate Joc Pederson was charging the ball hard and from shallow right field probably would have thrown out Taylor at third base anyway.

It was “a bad read,” Taylor said after the game, and he and Roberts agreed that if he’d had it to do over again, he would have stayed at second.

“By the book, he should have probably stayed,” Roberts said in the Truist Park interview room. “It was hit softly, it was kind of towards the gap. And so I felt that, you know, he thought he had a good, good read on it. It’s kind of one of those where you got to pick. You’re either going to go hard – and I don’t know if Joc would have thrown to third right there and just conceded that base – or just hold up with two outs and give Mookie (Betts) a chance. But I think right there he was kind of caught in between and that’s kind of when you get in trouble.”

It hurt because it enabled the Braves’ sometimes shaky closer, Will (The Elder) Smith, to get out of the inning. And Blake Treinen – switching places with Kenley Jansen and pitching the ninth – gave up Austin Riley’s second RBI of the night, a bullet down the left field line to score Ozzie Albies from second and win it for Atlanta, 3-2.

Treinen got the ninth and Jansen the eighth because of matchups, Roberts acknowledged. If it sometimes seems that managers act out of desperation when they change long-established patterns, it’s usually more of an all-hands-on-deck mentality based on squeezing out the least little tactical advantage whenever possible. (Often, as previously noted, in consultation with the front office and the analytics department. When it doesn’t work, of course, the manager gets most of the blame.)

It didn’t work this time, but it is not catastrophic. It’s a best-of-seven series, the Dodgers still have a pitching advantage the next three games, and you might remember the way the last series started against the team with the game’s best record.

(And time out for a sudden thought: What’s more annoying, “Beat L.A.” or that insufferable Tomahawk Chop? At least the former only offends people who live in L.A.)

Roberts’ plan worked until it didn’t, and some of that might have had to do with another mediocre offensive night. The Dodgers might have outscored the Giants 18-10 in the last series, but 16 of those runs came in two games, a continuation of the boom-or-bust approach that often makes this the most frustrating to watch 100-plus win team in baseball history.

They’ve now scored two runs or less in four of seven games in this postseason. And the Dodgers absolutely miss the bat of the injured Max Muncy in the middle of their lineup. Muncy was left off the roster for this series when it was submitted Saturday.

On Saturday night, they got a run in the second when AJ Pollock doubled and Taylor singled him home, and a run in the fourth when catcher Will (The Younger) Smith drilled Max Fried’s 0-and-2 four-seamer 416 feet into the left field stands. But aside from that RBI single by Taylor, the Dodgers were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position. And maybe this shouldn’t have been a surprise against Fried, the former Harvard-Westlake star who was among the best pitchers in the game in August and September, with a 7-0 record and 1.45 ERA in his 11 starts those two months.

“Considering the stuff that Fried had out there, to get him out after six, I thought we had good at-bats against him,” Roberts said. “We just couldn’t push enough runs across.”

“I mean, we just got to keep having good at-bats, you know?” Taylor told media members afterward. “I thought we did OK. You know, we ran into a tough pitcher and he’s been the best pitcher in the league in the second half, and we were able to get a couple across on him. And you know, it was one of those games. We squandered a couple opportunities and they took advantage.”

It’s not a new refrain for anyone following this team all season. But while the little moments can be aggravating, the big picture still seems to be in their favor thanks to Scherzer, Buehler and Urías.

jalexander@scng.com

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