All the Dodgers needed to do was win one more game. All they needed to do was produce with runners on base. With Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound for Game 3, they desperately needed to give him ample run support.
And, yet, the NLDS lives on as the Dodgers are forced to play at least one more game on Thursday against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Dodgers had a rough go of things against both southpaws Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo over the first two games. This time around against right-hander Aaron Nola, the Dodgers managed to put a man in scoring position with a Mookie Betts triple. Nola found himself in further trouble after plunking Freddie Freeman, but he froze Will Smith to leave men on the corners.
Then the Phillies took the lead in the fourth inning, eventually driving Yamamoto out of the game after two hits to open the fifth. While the Phillies’ offense finally clicked, the Dodgers were left scrambling for answers. Rob Thomson’s game plan of only having Nola out for two innings played out perfectly, as Ranger Suarez continued to pick up where Nola left off.
The Dodgers put two men on base with two outs against Suarez in the bottom of the fourth inning, including the tying man at first. Andy Pages, who had just one hit in 18 at-bats prior to facing Suarez, failed to break out of his postseason slumber, sending a ball high in the air that never left the infield that found the glove of Trea Turner.
The last chance the Dodgers stood against Suarez came in the sixth inning, where they once again had two men on base but with only one out. Max Muncy was given his first start of the series on Wednesday, and he rewarded his team by grounding into an inning-ending double play.
Clayton Kershaw’s first postseason appearance since 2023 sunk the Dodgers’ chances of getting themselves back in the game, as the Phillies erupted for five runs against him.
The Dodgers as a team combined to hit .250 with runners in scoring position over the first two games of the series, but on Wednesday, they managed just one hit in seven attempts while leaving eight men on base. The only hit with runners in scoring position belonged to the no. 9 hitter Tommy Edman, who plated a run on a single in the ninth inning long after putting the Dodgers on the board with a home run against Suarez.
Now, the Dodgers will once again face Sánchez, who has rightfully assumed the role as the de facto ace of the three-man rotation with Zach Wheeler out for the rest of the year. The Dodgers did have some success against Sánchez the last time he threw at Dodger Stadium back on Sept. 16, as both Alex Call and Kiké Hernández took him deep. The Dodgers will need to repeat the same success they had against him, as Tyler Glasnow, who has a career 7.56 ERA against the Phillies in his career, will look to end the Phillies’ season on Thursday.