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MILWAUKEE – When they dropped 10 games below .500 to put their season afloat in the middle of May, the Los Angeles Dodgers reacted by winning 43 of their next 63 games, throwing themselves into the race. When a fusion of pens caused a stretch of 3 to 9 in mid-August, they returned to win 11 of 15. After consecutive defeats against the unfortunate Cincinnati Reds, they lost their hopes of playing in the playoffs. Louis Cardinals and swept the Colorado Rockies. And when they entered the last weekend of September in desperation, they won four straight games, including a one – game tiebreaker, to win their sixth straight division title.
L.A. hit first in the last NLCS chess match. But the Milwaukee crowd took over and the Brewers took the emotion against a series of prolonged attacks.
Walker Buehler will start for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the seventh game of the NLCS on Saturday. Jhoulys Chacin will fight for the Milwaukee Brewers with a place in the World Series online.
From the Wild Cards round to the World Series, we'll be covering the 2018 playoffs.
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The Dodgers need another answer.
They bounced back every time they were challenged throughout the season and now, after a 7-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 6 of the National League series on Friday, they are head to match 7, a match – – on Saturday from 20:09 ET Miller Park – to decide whether they will move on to a second consecutive world series.
"I mean, since the month of August, we are playing for our life," said Kenley Jansen, close to the Dodgers. "Here we are again, with another shot, listen, man, they're a good team, we know we're good too."
The Dodgers will begin their early electric rookie, Walker Buehler, and the Brewers will face Jhoulys Chacin, who led his slider to an impressive career resurgence. But neither team will be afraid to call in his reinforcements sooner.
Clayton Kershaw, who made 98 shots during a masterful performance on Wednesday 5, can give the Dodgers a round. Jansen, who has had these last two days off, can provide more than that. But Josh Hader, the left-handed devastator who warmed up in the Brewers' office at the end of Friday's sixth game, can not either.
Hader would probably have launched if the Dodgers had threatened at the top of the eighth. But instead, they fell in order against Corbin Burnes. Now, Hader will enter the seventh game with three days off and the opportunity to pitch up to three innings.
"To beat him," said Max Muncy, Dodgers first baseman, "you only have to run on the board before it comes in."
The Dodgers did it this Friday, when they won the first round of the season. David Freese, who started in first place for the fourth time in 10 years. But Hyun-Jin Ryu struggled to control his off-speed shots and conceded four runs in the first 31-run, more than he gave up at any start of the season.
The Dodgers scored another point for Freese's double in the fifth inning. But Ryu gave up a double on Ryan Braun's double in the second, then Kenta Maeda gave another on a wild pitch in the seventh and Rich Hill gave another on the single Jesus Aguilar in the eighth.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could have pulled Ryu earlier, but he was worried about what might come next.
"There is the thought of trying to go to your paddock in the first inning or the second inning," Roberts said, "but there is a significant cost to a potential game 7."
The home teams are 55-56 throughout the playoffs since the start of the playoffs, which would indicate that a sold-out crowd might not give too much benefit to the Brewers. The Dodgers are 4-1 each time they play winning games on the circuit. The latest is the fifth game of the NL Division 2016 series against the Washington Nationals, which ended in a victorious victory.
"We all knew it would be a tough and contested series," said Dodgers receiver Austin Barnes. "I do not think anyone is too surprised that it's happening seven o'clock."
Yasmani Grandal, replaced by Barnes after two errors and three balls in his first two starts of the series, could return in the eleventh match because of his long season of chemistry with Buehler.
According to ESPN Stats & Information data, Buehler will become the fourth rookie in the last 30 years to launch a seventh game. He is only 24 years old and is in his second full season eliminated from Tommy John's surgery, but he has become an added bonus in this deep Dodgers staff throughout the second half, posting a 1.55 ERA at his 75⅓ innings of the regular season (including 6 in the game 163).
From the first launch of each series to the last of Game 7, you can follow the full post-season MLB on ESPN Radio. Listening »
"I think Walker is ready for this moment," Roberts said. "As for his rest, he is ready to leave, and as for his heartbeat, his weapons, all that, we are really in shape with him, he understands the magnitude of this moment, of this game, and he is a good person for us to take baseball. "
This series has in many ways summarized the Dodgers' season.
They put together one of the worst playoff performances of the first game: making four mistakes and two balls passed. The heroic home race of Justin Turner in the second game. They lost in defeat in the third game, but survived the Brewers in an exciting fourth game in 13 innings and gave Kershaw a crucial victory.
Now, the Dodgers season boils down to one question: do they have another resurgence in them?
"It's a good thing for us, we understand that nothing has been easy for us this year," said Jansen. "We just have to keep fighting, we're there again, it's the same situation, I feel good about it."
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