The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently in a tight postseason race, sitting 1.5 games back of the Colorado Rockies in the National League West and one game back of the St. Louis Cardinals for the second Wild Card spot going into play Friday.
The Dodgers got a big win on Thursday night in the opener of a four-game series against the Cardinals, defeating them 9-7 at Busch Stadium.
Manny Machado led the way offensively for the Dodgers, going 3-for-4 with a single, double, home run and sacrifice fly as he fell a triple shy of hitting for the cycle.
The Dodgers acquired Machado from the Baltimore Orioles, who have the worst record in baseball, before the non-waiver trade deadline. After Thursday’s game, he discussed the excitement he feels to be back playing in meaningful games in the month of September, via David Wilhelm of MLB.com:
“Every pitch, every out, every opportunity that’s out there, once you step on that field, it can be a big moment moving forward. This is why we love September baseball. It’s so much fun. We’re playing for something. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us. We’re just going to keep battling and enjoy every moment of it. We’ll see where it takes us.”
Machado is hitting .295/.360/.477 in 10 games in September, so he will look to keep that up as outside of Justin Turner, the rest of the offense has largely been inconsistent.
He recently said that he is ‘built for’ the pressure of a tight postseason race, and with just 15 games remaining in the season, now is the time to prove that is the case and he got off to a good start on Thursday night.
