There’s No End in Sight for the Dodgers’ Drought


The Dodgers made history on Sunday night at Dodger Stadium in their pitiful 5-1 game 5 loss to the Boston Red Sox. No not the kind of history that the Red Sox made as they clinched their fourth World Series championship since 2004. Instead, the Dodgers made history by losing their second consecutive World Series and have now made the postseason six straight years without a title. The championship drought has now reached 30 years and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
Trouble on the biggest stage
That’s because the biggest and brightest stars for the Dodgers like Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen will choke on the biggest stage in front of millions of people. Everyone should be used to this by now, but it doesn’t make it any less horrific. Kershaw as usual disappointed the Dodger faithful. He pitched seven innings allowing four earned runs on seven hits with five strikeouts.
As for the game, it was atrocious and the Dodgers were never in contention in game 5. Kershaw, in what could have been his final start in Dodger blue, allowed three home runs over seven mediocre frames, securing his legacy as one of the biggest postseason chokers of all time. He lost both his starts in the World Series this year and will go into another off-season without a ring. He’s got 72 hours to make a decision on his opt-out clause.
The Red Sox struck first in the bottom of the first immediately putting the Dodgers in a hole only minutes after the national anthem. Andrew Benintendi’s one-out single preceded Steve Pearce’s two-run home run. Boston scored single runs in the top of the sixth, seventh and eighth innings all on solo home runs. Mookie Betts homered off of Kershaw in the sixth, J.D. Martinez homered in the seventh, and Pearce hit his second home run of the game against Pedro Baez in the top of the eighth.
More success in the visitor’s clubhouse
The Dodgers literally did nothing with the bats the entire game, as I and many others expected. The lone run of the game for the boys in blue came in the bottom of the first inning when David Freese homered leading off the game. That was the only highlight of the game for the Dodgers. The Dodgers had three hits and almost no offense for the rest of the game. Freese did triple in the bottom of the third on a deep fly ball that sailed over Martinez’s head. He must have lost it in the lights and charitable scoring gave him a hit. Of course the Dodgers stranded him at third when Justin Turner and Enrique Hernandez both made outs. Opposing starter David Price tossed seven innings of one-run ball hardly breaking a sweat. He struck out five, walked two and allowed just three hits.
Joe Kelly pitched the bottom of the eighth and Chris Sale pitched the bottom of the ninth to end the series. The final out was quite fitting, small market loser Manny Machado, acquired to give the Dodgers a World Series ring struck out swinging. Machado, the man who doesn’t hustle batted .182 in the World Series. Good riddance. I hope he gets his money, but what a bust. Once again we were forced to watch another team celebrate a World Series championship at Dodger Stadium. The visitor’s clubhouse has now seen this two years in a row.
The Dodgers will be back in 2019, hopefully with some changes and a bit wiser. The Dodgers are indeed the Buffalo Bills of Major League baseball and man is it painful. Thank you Dodgers for another exciting season.
This article was originally published here at LA Dodger Report.
