ARLINGTON, Texas - Validation came at 10:37 p.m. Central time, wearing the classic home whites of the Los Angeles Dodgers and streaming out of the first base dugout for a dogpile near the pitcher's mound of Globe Life Field. The World Series was over. The Dodgers' tortuous, 32-year wait for another championship was over. The 2020 baseball season, bent and misshapen by a global pandemic, was over. And validation had arrived to drape itself on each and every one of them.
The line for validation was long and illustrious in the wake of the Dodgers' 3-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 of the 116th World Series, and all of them - the players, the manager, the brain trust, the franchise and the sport itself - would get their turn.
But first, validation's opposite number needed to be heard. Because the Dodgers' clinching win was made possible by nothing so much as the stunning and highly questionable pitching move the Rays made in the bottom of the sixth inning, when they pulled ace Blake Snell from a magnificent performance - a move that backfired immediately when the next two Dodgers hitters, Mookie Betts and Corey Seager, gave Los Angeles the lead.
Maybe the Dodgers would have won anyway if the Rays - who make no apologies for their analytic bent and data-driven decision-making - had left Snell alone. But no one will ever know.
In any case, few who watched this series could walk away with any other conclusion that the better team prevailed in the end - an outcome that itself provided a measure of validation for the legitimacy of the 60-game regular season and 16-team postseason, both of which were dominated by the Dodgers.
They were the best team, on paper, on the crisp February day when pitchers and catchers first reported. They were best team on March 12, when the pandemic forced the cancellation of the remainder of spring training, and the best team in April, May and June, as a labor battle held the regular season hostage. They were the best team in July, when the season finally started up, and in August and September as it careened toward the postseason.
The Dodgers' victory Tuesday night gave future Hall of Fame lefty Clayton Kershaw the title that forever cements his legacy, especially after he won Games 1 and 5 to help make it happen. It gave embattled Manager Dave Roberts the championship that had escaped him in the 2017 and 2018 World Series. It gave Betts, the Dodgers' big offseason acquisition, a second title to go with the one he won for Boston - over the Dodgers - two years ago.
And it brought validation, too, for president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, who operates with one of baseball's biggest payrolls, but made his career out of passing on every big-ticket player on the market - Bryce Harper and Manny Machado among them - until finally pulling the trigger on Betts in February. He was rewarded when Betts proved to be the missing piece that pushed the Dodgers over the top, with his solo homer in the eighth inning Tuesday night the latest piece of evidence.
The Rays have never won a World Series title in their 22-year history, and the fact they came closer than ever before this week will be of little consolation. Because who knows? If they had not made one of the most curious and second-guessable pitching moves in recent memory, this series might have been heading to a Game 7 on Wednesday night.
With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Rays Manager Kevin Cash pulled Snell, who was in the middle of what could legitimately be called an October gem - a nine-strikeout two-hitter, during which he had been more or less untouchable by the best hitters in the Dodgers' lineup, who are also, naturally, some of the best hitters on the planet.
The moment Cash strolled out his dugout to pull Snell following a leadoff single by Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes in the sixth, the crowd of 11,437, unable to believe what was taking place, hooted and cheered. Snell, despite knowing full well it is simply the way his team operates, looked away in disgust and shook his head. When he handed the ball to Cash, he wouldn't even look him in the eye.
The Rays were leading by one. The next three batters due up for the Dodgers were Betts, Corey Seager and Justin Turner - the same trio who had gone 0-for-6 with six strikeouts against Snell. Did the Rays really want someone besides Snell to face them?
The downfall was swift and predictable. Right-hander Nick Anderson, arguably the best reliever in baseball during the regular season but someone who appeared to have tired over the course of this series, entered and immediately allowed a double to right by Betts. A wild pitch scored Barnes, and a groundball to first base off the bat of Seager scored Betts - who beat the throw to the plate from Rays first baseman Ji-Man Choi.
Within two batters of getting Snell out of the game, the Dodgers had flipped a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.
But meantime, the Dodgers' pitching staff, collectively, was doing a pretty good Snell impression of their own. While starter Tony Gonsolin lasted just 1 2/3 innings - giving up Randy Arozarena's solo homer to right, the 10th of this postseason for the Rays phenom, extending his own MLB record - the Rays failed to put up more runs against him, despite ample opportunity.
But with an off-day Monday to replenish sagging arms, and with the Rays' lead stuck on one, Roberts managed his bullpen aggressively, cycling through reliever after reliever. All of them - right-hander Dylan Floro (who recorded one out), lefty Alex Wood (six outs), right-hander Pedro Baez (two), lefty Victor González (four) and Brusdar Graterol (two) - did the job to carry the game to the late innings.
When the Dodgers clinched the 1988 World Series against the Oakland A's, they used just one pitcher, with Orel Hershiser throwing a complete game in Game 5. This time, they used seven. The last of them was rookie lefty Julio Urías, who had thrown 80 pitches in his Game 4 start just three nights earlier, but here closed out the Rays with 2 1/3 dominant innings.
The Dodgers' win, in its own way, also validated the entire 2020 baseball enterprise, which teetered and tottered on the edge of oblivion several times, but stuck it out and was rewarded for its tenacity and adaptability.
A fluky champion might have contributed to the notion this was something less than a legitimate season. But 60-game season or no, the Dodgers were an historically good team, going 43-17 in the regular season - a .717 winning percentage that represents the highest for a World Series champion since Honus Wagner's 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, who went 110-42 (.724).
In any other season, the scene Tuesday night - the Dodgers, in their home whites, dogpiling on the infield, would have taken place at Dodger Stadium. But if one scene could aptly put a bow on the bizarre, unprecedented 2020 baseball season, it was this: a team from Southern California dancing across a field in Texas, a socially distanced crowd looking on.
It may have looked and sounded odd and surreal, but the Dodgers would be the first to tell you: it felt no less amazing for its setting or circumstances. The trophy they were handed was no less precious. And the banner they will raise next spring, right next to the one from 1988, will look no less grand atop the bleachers Dodger Stadium.
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October 28, 2020 at 10:47AM
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