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Holding Up on That $25 Dodgers Investment

October 9th, 2016 · No Comments · Baseball, Dodgers

The TV package I have here in southern France gives me a lot of sports stuff, but Major League Baseball is not part of the menu. Team handball nearly 24/7. Lots of tennis. Every English Premier League match, every Champions League match. (I actually watch some of those.)

No baseball. This is France, after all, and the idea of a stick-and-ball sport does not seem to have occurred to them.

But there is a solution: MLB is offering live game access to all postseason games, including to people living outside the United States … for $25.

With the Dodgers in the playoffs, and my current status as a gentleman of leisure meaning I can watch games at odd hours, I am considering this.

But I am waiting for the Dodgers to do just a bit more than they have so far, which includes a 5-2 defeat in Game 2 in Washington today after No. 2 starter Rich Hill was staked to an early 2-0 lead.

In short, I do not trust the Dodgers to do anything heroic in the postseason — pretty much nothing since 1988 — and I am not going to plunk down that $25 until they give me some hint of being “clutch”.

Kirk Gibson. Now there was an example of being clutch. His limp-off, two-run homer on a full count against Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series … about as clutch as possible.

But earlier in the 1988 postseason, Mike Scioscia shocked the New York Mets in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series by hitting a two-run home run off cruising Mets ace Dwight Gooden in the top of the ninth, forcing extra innings (Gibson hit the winning homer in the 12th). The light-hitting Scioscia hit only three homers in the regular season. If he had not gone deep against Gooden — which was a shock to anyone who saw it — the Dodgers would have been down 3-1 in the series. Oh, and Orel Hershiser came on to get the last out after having thrown seven innings the day before.

Since then … well, the Dodgers have reached the playoffs nine times (not counting this season). Six times, they went out in the first round. They went from 1988 to 2008 without winning a series.

In 2008, 2009 and 2013, they won a Divisional series to get to the NLCS, and on all three occasions they put up very little fight, losing 4-1, 4-1 and 4-2.

In playoffs games since 1988, the Dodgers now have a record of 18-32. The only hint of “clutch” during that point was the walkoff single by Mark Loretta to end Game 2 of what became a three-game NLDS sweep of the Cardinals.

To be sure, the Dodgers have been involved in four postseason walkoff hits, since Gibson went deep in ’88, but three of them were put up by the other team.

Until the Dodgers do a bit more, and give me any sort of Giants-style “it-ain’t-over-till-it’s-over” impression … I will hang on to that $25.

And in case you are interested, baseballreference.com has a handy list of “all postseason walk-off hits” in baseball history. Here it is.

 

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