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LOS ANGELES – Who cares about tomorrow? The Red Sox certainly do not. Tomorrow is for the hesitant and the lost. Tomorrow is for the meek and the undecided. There's a special place in purgatory for those who worry about tomorrow.
These guys go all in, every day. Today is the thing. Alex Cora like a guy on a solo trip to Vegas; he's getting home on the night Greyhound or he's getting a monthlong comp in the best suite.
If all in You have to go to the bullpen for six long innings, oh well. It's the price you pay for glory. If all in You are one more Eduardo Nunez pratfall away from having to fit Chris Sale for a first baseman's mitt, so be it. It's better than folding with a winning hand.
For the first two games of the World Series, Cora did everything right. He could not make a mistake if he tried. Pinch-hitters hit game-deciding homers and a succession of 100 mph relievers, one of them starter Nathan Eovaldi, got the last nine outs without much resistance. His fans have been repeatedly singing, "Yankees suck," as if they were yearning for a more appropriate competitor. Everything worked so ridiculously well in someone's face Cora, "Can a manager get on a hot streak?"
"Nah," he said. "It's the players."
By outlasting Boston over 440 dramatic minutes of grueling baseball, L.A. went from hopeless to hopeful in this World Series. Where will the Dodgers go from here?
L.A. outlasted the Red Sox in the longest game in World Series history The Max Muncy's walk-off homer provided a much-needed lift.
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But something shifted Friday night at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers and Red Sox played through the late afternoon, and they played through sunset, and they played through the night, and they played into Saturday morning. The Red Sox came into the face of a dead person. all in – that previously invincible dogma – cost them two games Friday night?
A win would have meant a 3-0 Lead series and a broken Dodgers spirit. But given the state of Boston's pitching, the carryover is a legitimate concern. Eovaldi was supposed to start Game 4. He had a pregame press conference and everything. And he would have been out there, having his moment, had the Dodgers and Red Sox not a seven-hour community theater vaudeville act. There was always one qualifier: With the way Cora manages every game as if it's their last, Eovaldi said, he could end up pitching in Game 3. All in? Eovaldi was. He ended up throwing 97 pitches over six remarkable innings.
Nunez appeared to be a candidate for the infirmary on several occasions. He hurt his ankle, or by running or catching or trying to stay out of the way of Austin Barnes' Dodgers catcher. And when he told Cora he wanted to stay in the game, Cora told him, "You are not coming out.
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After Eduardo Nunez was flipped to his back, Alex Cora told him that he was going to come back, he could not because of the Red Sox.
You can not prepare for that game. You can not make a decision in the heart of the world. You can not think If I do this right, we will win in nine or lose in 8½. Besides, it's not in the business of managing to simply survive another day.
But when you go all in, you run the risk of it going very wrong.
"It's not crushing at all," Cora said. "I was talking to them, told them how proud I was." The effort was amazing. "That was a great baseball game."
It might have been a great baseball game, but it was not great baseball. There were five runs and a million subplots. There was so much second-guessing it turned into thirds. David Price, the guy who started Game 2 on Wednesday night, in the game. Dodgers rookie Walker Buehler threw a game for the ages – prompting even Sandy Koufax to stand and cheer as he walked off after seven innings – and by the end, you had to strain he was even part of it. There was a season of pop-ups in the infield, and almost seven strikeouts for every run. Cody Bellinger one of the most confounding baserunning moves – getting picked up first with one of the game's second-most-riveting moment – preserving the tie with a double play Nunez's fly ball in medium right-center and throwing out Ian Kinsler at the plate for an inning-ending double play in the 10th. And that does not get you to Kinsler's decision to start – wildly, ridiculously – after fielding a slow grounder off the bat of Yasiel Puig. He threw off one foot, falling forward, in about the position you would find yourself if you tripped in the dark and decided to get away from it. Kinsler threw it away, Muncy scored the game at 2 in the 13th and they played on.
Cora would not commit to a 4 starter game, but he suggested it would probably be a left-hander. By process of elimination, we can not wait Drew Pomeranz, the only non-sales pitcher who did not take to the mound on Friday night. He was the lonely guy in the bullpen, and he would have taken the ball for the 19th had not gone ahead. Pomeranz is also the one who has not faced big league hitters since September, and the subject of this article is: "Pomeranz Admits He Was Pretty Shocked to Make Roster's World Series."
Cora remains undaunted, and all in. He's brushed aside about the fitness of his staff heading into Game 4. "There are a few guys who are lining up in my office to start the game tomorrow," he said. It sounded good, but it was wrong about one thing: By the time he said it, tomorrow had become today, which had been the only one of them.
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