SAN DIEGO — Large-time gamers make big-time performs in big-time video games.
Mookie Betts is actually a big-time participant, and his game-sealing catch to rob Tommy Pham within the Dodgers’ 2-Zero win over the Padres on Saturday at Petco Park undoubtedly classifies as a big-time play.
With the tying runs in scoring place within the ninth, Pham laced a liner to right-center area off Victor González. Off the bat, it perceived to land in entrance of Betts and the sport can be tied at 2. Betts, who’s a five-time Gold Glove Award winner in proper area, confirmed he can flash some leather-based in heart, laying out for a diving catch to safe the Dodgers’ eighth consecutive win.
“Mookie has performed a number of innings in heart area, however with that stated, it takes an elite defender in heart to make that play,” stated Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts. “Quite a lot of issues need to line up. There’s only a handful of men that would’ve most likely made that play. That’s why he’s arguably the very best all-around participant in baseball.”
The diploma of issue was about as excessive because it will get. Per Statcast, Betts had a 10 p.c probability to make the catch, having to journey 52 toes in three.three seconds, making it a five-star play.
“That play is admittedly exhausting to make,” stated Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. “For him to have the ability to do this, it’s simply another excuse why Mookie is the very best. That was an enormous catch as a result of additional innings would’ve been robust for us, in order that was enormous.”
Betts stated he blacked out throughout the play, however as quickly as he noticed he secured the catch, he pounded his chest and let loose some emotion. After a robust defensive displaying throughout final 12 months’s postseason, Saturday’s play will likely be proper up there on his private spotlight reel.
“You’re simply form of within the second and taking part in the sport,” Betts advised SportsNet LA after the sport. “I simply know when the ball went up within the air, I needed to go catch it. And that’s what I did.”
Whereas it was Betts’ play that sealed the win for the Dodgers, it was Kershaw who dominated the Padres’ offense on Saturday, main Los Angeles to the win. After utilizing six relievers in Friday’s 12-inning thriller, the Dodgers had been in want of a strong begin from Kershaw on Saturday. The long run Corridor of Famer delivered.
The Dodgers’ ace had all of his pitches working and benefitted from a slight enhance in velocity with the four-seam fastball. Nevertheless it was his signature slider that had the Padres’ hitters off stability.
“That’s simply traditional, classic Kersh,” stated Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner, who hit his fifth homer of the season within the ninth. “He threw the ball nice. … That man is only a gamer.”
Kershaw threw 25 sliders, recording 12 swings-and-misses. Of his eight strikeouts, seven of them ended on the slider. Opposing hitters got here into the sport with a .256 common in opposition to Kershaw’s fastball. The Padres went 2-for-12 with seven strikeouts in opposition to the pitch.
Over his final three begins, Kershaw has allowed one run over 19 innings, placing out 22 within the course of. Dodgers starters are 9-1 with a 2.56 ERA and 94 strikeouts this season.
However other than holding Padres hitters in examine all through the evening, it was additionally Kershaw that had the very best at-bat of the sport, drawing a two-out, bases-loaded stroll in opposition to Yu Darvish within the fifth. Kershaw fouled off two cutters and a slider on a 2-2 rely to maintain the inning alive. Darvish proceeded to overlook the zone with back-to-back cutters, permitting Zach McKinstry to attain the go-ahead run.
The final Dodgers pitcher to attract a bases-loaded stroll within the common season was Kershaw on June 24, 2017. If you happen to embody the postseason, it was Darvish who achieved it, in Recreation three of the 2017 NL Championship Collection in opposition to the Cubs.
“Simply attempting to be annoying, actually,” Kershaw stated. “I wasn’t going to get successful off him, he’s received too good of stuff. So it was simply form of attempting to be a nuisance as greatest you possibly can and fouling off pitches and making him work a bit bit. Lucky to get a stroll proper there.”
The much-anticipated collection in opposition to the Padres has had all of it. It has had nice pitching, a benches-clearing incident on Friday and Kershaw and Jurickson Profar exchanging pleasantries on Saturday. However by means of two video games, it’s been the Dodgers which have despatched the message. They’ll lean on their $40 million signing Trevor Bauer to safe the sweep on Sunday.
“They’re a very good membership, and clearly we all know that,” Roberts stated. “We knew it was going to be emotional and intense, and it has actually lived as much as the billing.”