The Dodgers beat the Brewers 3-1 on Friday night to pull within 1 game of Milwaukee in the standings.
Atlanta and Chicago are both in the mix as well for the top seed in the National League, but as of right now, the Brewers are the only team in the Dodgers’ way when it comes to claiming a bye in the first round of the playoffs.
Andy Pages carried the offense, delivering a 3-for-4 night with a go-ahead homer in the 5th inning. Yoshinobu Yamamoto did his thing on the mound, limiting the Brewers’ offense to 1 run while striking out 9.
The story of the game, however, once again took place after the trumpets sounded in the 9th inning. Edwin Diaz took the mound a night after blowing the first game of the series, and as it has been all season with the Dodgers’ new star closer, the inning was not the prettiest of sights.
Diaz hit the first batter he faced and ended up loading the bases with a pair of walks before ultimately inducing several ground balls to record the save.
“It was a tough one, but at the end of the day I made my pitches, got the 3 outs, and got the W, so that is the most important thing at the end of the day,” said Diaz.
It marks only the 7th save of the season for the $69 million closer who has dealt with inconsistency and injuries during his first year in Los Angeles.
“It was good to see him throw up a 0 and come away with the save. It was good to see him work his way out of it. I wanted to see him fight through it and I was happy that he finished what he started,” said Dave Roberts.
Diaz has blown 4 saves this season, including 3 of his last 4 attempts heading into the night. He has a massive track record of success at the big-league level, but his lack of success this season is a major concern for a team that expects excellence.
“The strength and pitching department have detected some things that we can kind of clean up, and so that is encouraging. We started that process today, and he will have a couple of days off to work through that, and we will see a better version of him going forward,” said Roberts.
He is one of the best relief pitchers of this generation with 259 career saves and only 38 losses on his resume. When at his best, there are very few pitchers that possess the same level of talent when it comes to finishing games.
Diaz should keep working his way into form. He missed much of the middle portion of the year, so some sort of adjustment period was expected, but no one could have foreseen a player with his reputation performing this poorly up until now.
“I just have to start putting good outings together. I have been having 1 good 1 and then 1 bad 1. So today is a new start, and I have to set my mind to keep having good outings and get 2 good outings in a row,” said Diaz.
The save and the win are all that matter to a closer. Still, the fact that he loaded up the bases before getting the last batter in Milwaukee’s order to ground out is not exactly what Dave Roberts and company are hoping to see out of a guy they projected to be closing out games in October.
It is a step in the right direction, and might be the start of a solid finish to the regular season for Diaz. That being said, if he fails to close out games consistently from now until the end of September, the Dodgers will have to start looking at other options. There will be too much on the line for this team to have a massive question mark entering games to seal the deal.
Benjamin Verbrugge is a reporter for News4usonline who studied journalism at CSU Dominguez Hills. “Sports have brought me much joy throughout my life, and I want to give a little back to something that has meant so much to me.” Email Benjamin at benverbrugge8@gmail.com.
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