World Series set as Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves to capture NL pennant
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Cody Bellinger's dramatic home run catapulted his Los Angeles Dodgers one step closer to their dream Hollywood ending.
The World Series field was set Sunday after L.A. captured the National League pennant by beating the upstart Atlanta Braves, 4-3, in Arlington, Texas, in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.
Bellinger's seventh-inning blast broke a 3-3 tie made by Kike Hernandez's solo homerun the previous inning. Their heroics were made possible by teammate Mookie Betts, who made a wall-climbing, homer-robbing catch off a blast hit by Braves slugger Freddie Freeman in the fifth inning.
The Dodgers trailed in the series 2-0 and 3-1 before rallying to keep their dominant 2020 campaign alive. L.A. was baseball's best team in the regular season, winning 43 of 60 games, an incredible 71.7 percent winning rate, while scoring 136 more runs than their opponents.
"Man, we're resilient," Bellinger said. "The Atlanta Braves are an amazing team. It was not an easy series and that was fun right there."
L.A. manager Dave Roberts reflected on the strange summer marked by the pandemic, protests against systemic racism and now a Dodgers NL pennant.
"I'm just so proud of these guys. It's been a crazy year, guys away from their families, social injustices," the emotional manager said. "This year is our year, this is our year!"
The Boys in Blue will meet the analytics-driven Tampa Bay Rays, who won the American League pennant on Saturday by beating the scandal-plagued Houston Astros.
The Dodgers get to stay put in Texas, where the Fall Classic will be played on neutral ground starting Tuesday at Globe Life Field, new home of the Texas Rangers.
Most of the playoff games have been played at neutral sites, as MLB hopes bubbles will keep players and staff safe from the coronavirus pandemic, which forced teams into a truncated 60-game schedule, far less than the normal season of 162 games.
For long-suffering L.A. fans, Sunday night's victory fueled hope that this Dodgers cast - loaded with bankable leading men like Betts and Clayton Kershaw and young supporting stars like Game 6 winning pitcher Walker Buehler, NLCS MVP Corey Seager and 2019 NL MVP Bellinger - can finally script a world title.
The glamorous Dodgers have baseball's 10th-longest title-less string, a remarkable streak of October failure given L.A.'s run of eight straight NL West titles.
The Dodgers last hoisted the Commissioner's Trophy in 1988, in a Fall Classic best known for Kirk Gibson's walk-off home run in Game 1 against the Oakland A's and their lights-out closer Dennis Eckersley.
The L.A. bridesmaids have been close - and unlucky - before, losing the 2017 and 2018 World Series to the Astros and Boston Red Sox, both later implicated in sign-stealing scandals.
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I look forward to my annual baseball fix, because up until now, at least, they did show the World Series on cable TV here. I mean, how many times can I watch The Natural, or Moneyball? I know I'll enjoy it, but it won't be as exciting as having seen the Cubs finally do it, or watching my "home" team, the Blue Jays.
Go Dodgers!
With just a 60 game season there shouldn't be a World Series.
Why not?
Personal opinion. A regular full-season consist of 162 games, I don't think playing 60 games is enough to determine which are the best teams to get in the playoffs let alone the ones to get in the World Series
I prefer to see a season of 60 games over none and to me 60 games is statistically sufficient to determine each division. With 60 games, each team still played each of its intra-divisional rivals ~10 times and played 20 inter-divisional games on top of that. That seems, to me, to be enough to determine the division winners and wild-cards. The off-season was not truncated. A full off-season normally determined the league winners and that is then good enough reason to hold a World Series.
Keep in mind that MLB plays far more games than the NBA or NFL. 162 games is arguably overkill rather than necessary.
I am thankful MLB went with a truncated season and a full off-season. With so much entertainment being stifled by this pandemic, I am very supportive of professional sports teams doing what they can to provide a semblance of a season for us.
Although I disagree with your comment I upvoted it for sound reasoning.
Keep in mind the NBA and NFL is far more physically demanding on the players than baseball
Agreed, but that simply enables a longer season; it is not the reason we have such a long season. The baseball season is long because the longer the season, the greater the profits. Right now, the season is limited mostly by seasonal weather.
I will return the upvote.
Baseball has always had a long season. They started playing a 154 game schedule in 1904.
I'm assuming they played so long through the year because there was little else in the way of professional sports. Boxing, and maybe horse racing, although I think large scale horse racing got going a little later.
I would have preferred another Falcons loss to a Braves win. True Atlanta team fashion though....SMH
Tampa is on a roll. Stanley Cup, now in the World Series and the Bucs demolished Green Bay.
so is LA, NBA Champs, next, World Series Champs!