National League Championship Series, Game 5

I won’t always write about baseball, but until the Dodgers’ 2021 playoff run ends, you’ll just have to deal with it.

Folks who don’t watch baseball often say that it’s too boring.

“There’s all this standing around, waiting for some guy to throw a ball so some other guy can hit it. It goes on and on like this for three hours, and, oh my god, I just want to die.”

Yeah, for a casual fan that might be true if they’re watching a standard mid-June or July game against a sub .500 team, but it’s far from the case when teams are locked into a tight divisional race down the stretch of a season against a bitter rival, or if they’re one of the few teams who earned their way into the playoffs. In the postseason, any pitch can extend a team’s hopes for a title or kill them. One mistake, on the field or in the dugout, can mark the beginning of a rally or the end of an epic run.  The drama is palpable. Hearts are pounding in chests. Nerves are electrified, in danger of blowing out. It’s anything but boring.

Last night’s NLDS Game 5 matchup between my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers and the despised San Francisco Giants was the most intense baseball game I’ve ever watched. I couldn’t sit down after the sixth inning. My friend was pacing around my living room, like a tweaker. He couldn’t even look at the TV. The entire series turned out to be the clash of titans I knew it would be. King Kong versus Godzilla didn’t have shit on them. Throughout the regular season, the Dodgers and Giants, both triple-digit winning teams, traded blows with each other, and when the season ended on October 3rd, the Dodgers were just not good enough to edge the Giants out for division title. They played a one-game playoff in the Wild Card round against the Cardinals, and that ended like this:

It was destiny that the Dodgers and Giants would play each other in the National League Division Series, for the first time in MLB history, and a lot of fans figured it would go the distance. Not only did they play all five games to determine who would advance to the next round of the playoffs, but the final game of the series was a butthole-puckering affair. I’m talking three hours of ass-clenching tension that was ever-so-briefly reprieved in the top of the sixth inning when the Dodgers finally scored, putting the game’s first run on the board. El Culichi proceeded to immediately give that run back to the Giants in the next half-inning when they tied the game via an absolute BOMB from Darin Ruf (I heard the ball filed an assault charge against him afterwards), and it seemed like the Dodgers were doomed to getting their hearts ripped out by Mola Ram and the rest of the Thuggee cult late in the game. However, Cody Bellinger, mired in the slumpiest of slumps, a historically bad season at the plate, stepped up in the top of the ninth with JT and Gavin Lux on base, and delivered what would end up being the game-winning run. Max Scherzer stormed out of the bullpen to shut down the game, for the first time in his career, and got it done (with a little help from first base umpire Gabe Morales).

That was a check swing, but was this, too?

Hell no, but the Giants rode that shitty call that night in July all the way to a victory. They ended up winning the division by a game. Did that game in July factor into it? Sure did.

Umpires get calls wrong often. This NLDS was steeped in bad calls at the plate against both teams. It sucks, but it’s sports. One team’s agony is another’s glory. That it all came down to a bad call is egregious. Sorry about that, Giants’ fans (I’m not really sorry, and neither would any of you be).

The 106-win Dodgers now have to fly to Atlanta to open the National League Championship Series against the NL East winning Braves, who won 18 fewer games, because the Dodgers were a Wild Card team. Weird circumstance, but that’s how the baseball rolls. These Braves probably have “payback” on their minds since they choked a 3-1 series lead last year to lose the NLCS to the Blue Crew, but you know I don’t believe they’ll fulfill that dream.

Dodgers in 6!