[Live blog | Phillies-Dodgers | Cubs-Brewers]
Thursday brought two more high-stakes baseball games, with win-or-go-home contests in Game 4 of the NLDS.
The first was an extra-innings thriller, with the Los Angeles Dodgers surviving — on a brutal Phillies error in the 11th — to end the series in four games with a 2-1 victory at home.
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The second game was a celebration at Wrigley Field, as the Chicago Cubs won 6-0 and forced a Game 5 against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday in Milwaukee.
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Ian Happ, the longest-tenured Chicago Cubs player, came into Thursday with only two hits this postseason. His third delivered a three-run home run in the bottom of the first inning at Wrigley Field, where his Cubs won an elimination game for the second day in a row.
As was the case in NLDS Game 3, a rush of first-inning runs was all Chicago needed in Game 4. But this time, the Cubs added three insurance runs. Those were the cherries on top of their surgical pitching performance. Matthew Boyd got a standing ovation after his 4 2/3 innings of shutout ball, and his relievers finished off a 6-0 Chicago victory.
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With that, the Cubs will head back up I-94 to Milwaukee for a winner-take-all Game 5 on Saturday, with a trip to the NLCS on the line.
In Game 4, Boyd set the tone on the mound with three quick outs after walking Christian Yelich to lead off. In his outing, the southpaw struck out six and allowed just two hits.
Freddy Peralta also collected six Ks, but he didn’t get out of the first inning unscathed. Peralta — who was jeered with “Freddy” chants between pitches — gave up a single to Nico Hoerner, a four-pitch walk to Kyle Tucker and the three-run dinger to Happ.
The Cubs scored again in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, tacking on a run each time. Matt Shaw hit an RBI single to center. Kyle Tucker deposited a solo home run. Michael Busch blasted his fourth home run of this postseason.
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The Brewers have now lost five straight potential clinchers, dating to Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS. With all the pressure on them entering Game 5, their 97-win season is suddenly hanging in the balance.
An epic game ended with an error, and it means the Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the NLCS.
With the bases loaded and two outs in the 11th inning, Andy Pages — the Dodgers’ worst hitter of the postseason — hit an easy ground ball to reliever Orion Kerkering. Kerkering booted the ball, then threw it toward home but out of the reach of catcher J.T. Realmuto — too little, too late to save his team’s season. The winning run crossed the plate, and the Dodgers won 2-1 in Game 4.
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Dodger Stadium exploded with noise as soon as the ball left Kerkering’s hand, leaving the Phillies walking off the field, shell-shocked. With that, the Dodgers advance to face the winner of the Brewers-Cubs series in the NLCS, which begins Monday.
For six innings, the game in L.A. was a full pitchers’ duel. Phillies ace Cristopher Sánchez answering the bell was hardly surprising after a season that will see him finish as a Cy Young finalist, but Tyler Glasnow also came up huge for the Dodgers nearly two weeks after his most recent start.
Glasnow and Sánchez exchanged zeros into the seventh inning and allowed six hits combined across that span. It was only in that seventh that both bullpens got involved, in ways that inspired second-guessing on both sides. Despite Glasnow being at only 83 pitches, the Dodgers opted to pull him for Emmet Sheehan, who promptly gave up a go-ahead run on a Nick Castellanos double in the seventh.
Sánchez stayed in to start the seventh but allowed two baserunners after recording the first out. The Phillies then summoned rested closer Jhoan Duran to put out the fire. An Andy Pages grounder put runners on second and third with two outs, and then the Phillies intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani, who to that point was 1-for-17 with eight strikeouts in the series.
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That decision blew up in the Phillies’ faces when Mookie Betts worked a full-count walk to tie the game, but that obviously wasn’t the end of their mistakes.
MLB division series live blog
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