Written by Andy McCullough at LATimes.com
The whiteboard inside the Dodgers clubhouse Thursday was blank after an 8-4 defeat by Chicago in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. There were no words of wisdom, no message of snark or substance. The Dodgers milled around the room, quiet in the wake of back-to-back losses, 48 hours removed from a scene of joy.
Two days earlier, fumes from a smoke machine clouded the room and a disco ball refracted a rainbow of light. The Dodgers had cradled this series in their hands, up a game with two to play at Dodger Stadium, two victories away from the World Series.
House money lasts only so long. The Dodgers may not play another game in this ballpark until April. After bumbling through Game 4, the group managed another dispiriting performance in Game 5, bequeathing control to the 103-win Cubs. Shut out in Game 2 and Game 3, Chicago blitzed the Dodgers for 18 runs in the last 18 innings.
“Honestly, these last two nights, we got beat,” Manager Dave Roberts said. “We got beat.”
Even before the bullpen collapsed Thursday, the offense failed to dent Cubs starter Jon Lester. Kenta Maeda was unable to complete four innings. Joe Blanton served up his second game-altering homer of the series, this one a two-run blast by shortstop Addison Russell to break a sixth-inning deadlock.
His team down two runs in the eighth, Roberts handed the ball to reliever Pedro Baez and watched the night turn into ash. The inning was torture. It lasted nine batters. The Cubs scored five runs, the first two aided by imprecise fielding from Baez and his defenders, the last three plated by second baseman Javier Baez’s double off another reliever, Ross Stripling.
“They didn’t hit the ball hard, and they scored a bunch of runs, until the double,” first baseman Adrian Gonzalez said. “We’ve got to do a better job of making outs when they’re there.”
For the second round in a row, the Dodgers turn to Clayton Kershaw to stave off elimination. If the Dodgers win Game 6 on Saturday, Rich Hill will start on Sunday in the finale. Kershaw and Hill have combined for 13 scoreless innings in this series.
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