LOS ANGELES – OK, do you believe in the Arizona Diamondbacks now?
The D-Backs continued their magical postseason revenge tour, blowing the whistle on the Los Angeles Dodgers for the second straight game on Monday night, 4-2, and are now one win away from advancing to the National League Championship series for only the third time in franchise history.
The D-Backs hold a two-game lead in the NL Division’s best-of-five series and can wrap up the series on Wednesday night or Thursday night at Chase Field in Phoenix, capping their impressive postseason run.
The last time the D-Backs played in Phoenix, they had to admit defeat to the Houston Astros at the end of the regular season, but secured the final wild card spot with a loss and celebrated with a pool party.
Since then, they’ve gone to Milwaukee, beat the Brewers in the NL Wild Card Series and now crushed the Dodgers, silencing the sellout crowd of 51,449 at Dodger Stadium.
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Maybe it’s time to repeal the narrative that the Diamondbacks are these plucky little underdogs.
“We hear the conversation,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “We’re here, maybe we’re like the little pest that everyone can beat up.
“We take this personally. We accept it.
“We understand that we haven’t done much compared to the Dodgers or the Astros or some of the teams that are getting some notoriety.
“But we’re here, we’re ready to compete and we like it that way.”
They were certainly rude guests in the Dodgers’ starting lineup, embarrassing three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw in Game 1 and tormenting Game 2 rookie starter Bobby Miller.
The Diamondbacks knocked Miller out of the game after just 1 2/3 innings, allowing three runs and four hits.
The Dodgers’ starting rotation after the first two games:. 2 innings, 10 hits, 9 earned runs, 40.50 ERA.
They were forced to use their bullpen for 48 of the 54 outs in that series.
“You just can’t win 11 games in October by doing every single bullpen [game]said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “This simply cannot happen. It’s just not sustainable. “You have to have a guy who can kill outs.”
The Dodgers could have an awfully long winter to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again next October.