The Los Angeles Dodgers, one win away from the World Series, handed the ball to Jack Flaherty in Game 5, looking to secure the win over the New York Mets and close out the National League Championship Series.
Flaherty was dominant in his first outing against the Mets, throwing seven shutout innings in Game 1. However, Game 5 proved to be a completely different story.
Flaherty allowed eight runs on eight hits over just three innings, walked four and failed to strike out a hitter. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts noted the right-hander has been “under the weather” but was unsure if that led to the ineffective start.
The 29-year-old blamed the poor outing on failing to make adjustments himself while crediting the Mets for making the adjustments they needed to.
“I felt like it was the first time in a while I kind of let the game speed up on me a little bit and didn’t make the adjustments in-game that normally get made,” Flaherty said.
“Especially after that first inning, where they put a couple good at-bats together. Tip your hat to Pete; he put a good swing on a pitch. We didn’t make adjustments after that and I kept going back to the well. They did a good job making adjustments, and I didn’t.”
Flaherty did not offer much in terms of the specifics of what happened, but added he wants to learn from what went wrong and improve moving forward.
“The game speeds up and you’ve got to make adjustments. Sometimes that happens, and in the playoffs things get magnified a little bit more. I didn’t make adjustments in terms of a bunch of different things. I’m not going to get into what I think those are,” he said.
“It hasn’t happened in a while, letting the game speed up and things cycle that quickly. That’s baseball sometimes, and you get a chance to learn from it.”
Flaherty also saw his fastball velocity drop by a significant amount during the game, but believed his lack of command to be the primary issue. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza also credited his club for not swinging at pitches outside the zone this time around.
“We didn’t chase his secondary pitches,” Mendoza said. “We know he’s got that slider and the knuckle curve, and he’s going to try to make us chase, and we didn’t do that today. And when he came in the zone with his fastball, we were ready. That’s the key.
“When you get in between, that’s when he’s going to give you trouble. But we were ready for the fastball, and then we lay off some of the secondary pitches there.”
Flaherty did manage to throw a scoreless inning in the second, but the Mets put up three in the first and five in the third, which all but put the game out of reach for the Dodgers.
Jack Flaherty notes challenge of postseason
After just pitching against the same team five days ago, it’s a tough ask for any pitcher to go back out there and throw another great game, especially in the playoffs when every team is one of the best in the sport. However, Flaherty didn’t want to use that as an excuse and would love the opportunity to face them again.
“It’s part of the challenge of it,” Flaherty said. “What makes the postseason so interesting is facing a team two times in a span of five days, and getting a chance to go right back at them. You know they want to get back for what went on in Game 1, and you want to continue rolling.
“They did a good job, so you tip your cap to them for what they were able to do and swings that they took. We’ll go back and figure some things out, make adjustments. If I could take the ball in the next game, I would, but that’s not the way baseball works.
“Honey did a good job picking us up and giving us some innings. The guys kept showing some fight, and putting up six runs makes it sting a little bit more because all you had to do was be average, and we’re in this game. You’ve got to regroup, go back to L.A., and next man up.”
For Flaherty, his next time pitching would come in the World Series, if the Dodgers are able to advance, so he has more than a week to make his adjustments and get back on track.
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