The Washington Post - USA (2020-10-20)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU D5

ASSOCIATED PRESS

T yler Glasnow will start Tues-
day night’s World Series opener
for the Tampa Bay Rays in Arling-
ton, Tex., against the Los Angeles
Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw, the
teams announced Monday.
Glasnow, a 27-year-old right-
hander, was 5-1 with a 4.08 ERA in
11 starts during the regular season
and 2-1 with a 4.66 ERA in four
postseason starts.
Kershaw, 32, a three-time Na-
tional League Cy Young Award
winner, was 6-2 with a 2.16 ERA
this season. The left-hander is 2-1
with a 3.32 ERA in four starts this
postseason, giving him an 11-12
record and a 4.31 ERA in his post-
season career.
Blake Snell will be on the
mound for the Rays in Game 2 on
Wednesday night. The Dodgers
did not announce a Game 2 starter
and must decide whether to start
Walker Buehler on three days’
rest.
Snell, a 27-year-old left-hander
who won the 2018 American
League Cy Young, was 4-2 with a
3.24 ERA in 11 regular season
starts and is 2-2 with a 3.20 ERA in
four postseason starts.
l DODGERS: Cody Bellinger
knocked his right shoulder out of
whack with a celebration after his
home run that sent L os Angeles to
the World Series.
The reigning NL MVP said
Monday he was “feeling pretty
good,” and Manager Dave Roberts
said he expects Bellinger to start in
center field for Game 1.
Bellinger, who has separated
his shoulder multiple times, hurt
it again with the emphatic cel-
ebration that followed his go-
ahead homer in the seventh in-
ning of Game 7 of the NL Champi-
onship Series, a 4-3 victory over
the Atlanta Braves on Sunday
night. He did a leaping high-five
with Enrique Hernández, whose
pinch-hit solo shot an inning earli-
er had tied the score.
“I wish that I didn’t do it, but it
was such a cool moment for me,
and it was just pure excitement,”
Bellinger said.
l RAYS: Tampa Bay c enter
fielder Kevin Kiermaier is still

dealing with a sore left wrist a

week after getting hit by a 99-mph

fastball in Game 3 of the AL Cham-

pionship Series against Houston.

The three-time Gold Glove win-

ner returned to the starting lineup

in Game 7 on Saturday night.

“I don’t think there’s any cause

for concern moving forward,” said

Kiermaier, the longest-tenured

Rays player.

l UMPIRES: Bill Miller will be

the crew chief for the World Series

and will work home plate for

Game 3 between the Dodgers and

Rays.

This will be Miller’s fourth

World Series. His c rew includes

Jerry Meals, Mark Carlson, Laz

Diaz, Chris Guccione, Marvin

Hudson and Todd Tichenor, the

commissioner’s office said.

Diaz will be behind the plate for

Tuesday’s opener; Tichenor, who

will be umpiring his first World

Series, will be b ehind the plate for

Game 2.

l REDS: Cincinnati General

Manager Nick Krall was named

director of baseball operations for

the team.

The Reds announced t hat Krall

was being promoted to replace

Dick Williams, who resigned this

month to assume a larger role in

his family’s development busi-

ness. Krall will still hold the GM

title but w ill report directly to

owner Bob Castellini.

l AWARD: The players’ associ-

ation is starting an annual Curt

Flood Award.

Part of the annual Players

Choice Awards, the Flood honor

will be given to a player “who in

the image of Flood demonstrated

a selfless, longtime devotion to the

players’ association and

a dvancement of players’ rights.”

Flood died in 1997. The outfield-

er was a three-time all-star and

two-time World Series champion

with the St. Louis Cardinals who

unsuccessfully sued to strike

down baseball’s reserve clause, a

case he lost at the Supreme Court

in a 5-3 vote in 1972. His case

helped unite the union, a nd the

reserve clause was struck down i n

1975.

The first winner of the award

will be announced Thursday.

BASEBALL NOTES

Glasnow and Kershaw

will square off in Game 1

nights, beginning with Game 5,

Betts made a play in right field

that saved runs and altered the

course of the game.

The most baseball-savvy of

them came in Game 5 — Dodgers

down 2-0 in the third inning,

runners on second and third, one

out — on a sinking liner hit in

front of him. Betts immediately

knew the only chance he had to

throw out the runner tagging

from third was to remain on his

feet instead of diving. His sprint-

ing, reaching, shoestring catch

leading to a double play saved the

game for the Dodgers and

sparked a comeback win that

kept their season alive.

The most athletic play came in

Game 6 — Dodgers up by three in

the fifth inning, runner on first,

two outs — when he made a

sprinting, leaping catch of Mar-

cell Ozuna’s deep drive on the

warning track, saving another

run and closing the door on a

Braves comeback.

But Betts’s most memorable

play, and the one he would later

cite as his favorite, came in

Game 7 — when he leaped at the

wall to steal a home run from

Freddie Freeman.

“The one [in Game 6] was

probably the most important. I

think we stopped some momen-

tum there for sure,” Betts said

after Game 7. “But I think today

was my favorite, since it was

actually a home run.”

In the aftermath of the Game 7

play, Red Sox fans, full of the

accumulated angst of watching

their former franchise player per-

forming his familiar heroics for

the Dodgers, vented so loudly

online that “Red Sox” for a time

was trending on Twitter in the

middle of the Dodgers/Braves

f inale.

Organizations spend millions

of dollars, scouts sort through

thousands of prospects, and front

offices devote hours and days and

months and years to the mission

of locating, nurturing and deploy-

ing a player such as Mookie Betts.

If you’re lucky, you find one like

him in a lifetime.

The Dodgers have Betts on

their side. It is good to be them —

especially now, entering Game 1

of the World Series. But someone

else had him and then sent him

away. Woe be to them.

[email protected]

“We talked about it leading up

to it,” Turner said of him and

Betts. “Just address the team,

make sure everyone is on the

same page. It’s obvious we all

know what’s at stake and what

we’re playing for — but just [to]

remind the guys not everything is

always going to go our way. It

might not always be easy. But as

long as we keep mentally grind-

ing, support each other and play

together as a group, we’ll get

through anything.”

Betts backed up his words with

his play. He went 3 for 7 with three

doubles and drove in three of the

Dodgers’ seven runs in a two-

game mini-sweep of the Milwau-

kee Brewers in the first round,

then went 4 for 12 with two more

doubles in a three-game sweep of

the Padres.

Against the Braves in the

NLCS, Betts hit just .269, slugged

just .308, had just one extra-base

hit and drove in just one run. But

that hardly conveys how thor-

oughly and definitively he tilted

the series in the Dodgers’ favor

after they had fallen behind three

games to one.

On each of the next three

“It’s incredible what he does on

defense, what he does on the

bases, in the batter’s box,” Dodg-

ers president of baseball opera-

tions Andrew Friedman told re-

porters during a video interview.

“The instincts and feel for the

game are usually seen in extra

players — because they have to do

those extra things to get to the big

leagues and stick around. You

rarely see that in the best player

on the field.”

“I love the coaching staff, the

players, the front office,” Betts

said Sunday night of his first

season in L.A. “Everything about

the Dodgers is winning. That’s in

my DNA, so that’s why I chose to

stay here.”

On Oct. 5, at the end of their

workout on the eve of the division

series against the San Diego

P adres, the Dodgers huddled in

the outfield at Globe Life Field.

Two players spoke to the group.

The first was third baseman Jus-

tin Turner, the Dodgers’ longest-

tenured position player. The sec-

ond was Betts, their newest. What

Betts lacked in Dodgers tenure,

he more than made up for in

stature.

third-place finish in 2019 to last

place in 2020, while undertaking

an economic overhaul of which the

Betts trade was the centerpiece —

the Dodgers, with Betts as their

indefatigable engine and franchise

player, are preparing to face the

Tampa Bay Rays beginning Tues-

day night in Game 1 of the World

Series at Globe Life Park.

The Dodgers have several,

complex reasons for believing

this is the most complete of their

eight consecutive division -

champion playoff teams, the first

seven of which ended with Octo-

ber defeats: their enviable start-

ing pitching depth, the many

r ecent dividends of their player-

development machine, the ma-

turing of core players such as

Corey Seager, Walker Buehler and

Cody Bellinger.

But the simplest reason is this:

Those teams didn’t have Mookie

Betts, and this one does.

“Mookie kind of separates him-

self, I think, with the consistency,”

said left-hander Clayton Ker-

shaw, the Dodgers’ longtime ace.

“The other things he can do on

the baseball field if he happens to

not be getting hits — that’s what

separates him. There’s also a con-

fidence there — just a really calm-

ing influence. Thankfully, he’s on

our team.”

The Dodgers knew what they

were getting in Betts when they

made the trade: a dynamic r ight

fielder and hitter who can alter

games with his glove, his bat, his

legs or his arm. The 28-year-old

hit .292 with 16 homers, slugged

.562 and stole 10 bases during the

truncated, 60-game regular sea-

son, playing defense like the four-

time Gold Glove winner he is and

lifting himself into the NL MVP

conversation.

But there was more to Betts

than even the Dodgers realized,

and that, as much as the sheer,

game-changing talent, was what

prompted the Dodgers to sign

Betts to a 12-year, $365 million

contract extension in July. A fran-

chise that is not prone to making

blockbuster moves, and that had

passed on one big free agent after

another over the years — all in the

name of future economic flexibili-

ty — had decided, for once, to go

all-in. Betts made the Dodgers

change course.

DODGERS FROM D1

For the Dodgers, Betts has been the catch of the year

CURTIS COMPTON/ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mookie Betts robbed the Braves’ Freddie Freeman of a home run

in the fifth inning of the Dodgers’ NLCS Game 7 win Sunday night.

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