On top of the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers each producing historic seasons with 107 and 106 wins, respectively, the storied rivals are now meeting in the playoffs for the first time in the franchises’ history.
It’s a fact that had Cody Bellinger and Trea Turner at a loss, and one Max Scherzer in a sense is drawing from because of how passionate both fans are for the National League Division Series matchup.
“This is playoff baseball where those fanbases are just absolutely diehard ready to win and they want to see us obviously win,” Scherzer said on the eve of his Game 3 start.
“Our Dodger fanbase definitely wants us to definitely beat the Giants. It’s personal to them, so it’s personal to us. We want to win, we respect the heck out of the Giants and how good they are, but you got to go out there and believe that you can beat them.”
The Dodgers were dominated by Logan Webb in Game 1 but responded the following night with a rout to even the NLDS. Now Game 3 serves as one that can swing momentum, but Scherzer doesn’t see it as carrying any added significance.
“They’re all important,” he said. “I mean, [Saturday] was really important for us to win. Every game’s more important than the next, so I can’t really say that Game 3 is the most important of the series. … Every game in the postseason is must-win. That’s how you always look at it. There’s never a game that you come into the postseason and you say, ‘I’m OK with losing in the postseason.’
“That’s never been a mentality. You come in wanting to win every single time. So being tied, up 2-0, down 2-0, it doesn’t matter. You always want to win. There’s no other way to play baseball and everybody approaches it that way, every decision’s manufactured that way. There’s never just like, ‘Hey, we’re Ok with losing a game.’ No, never. Nothing’s really changed.”
Scherzer addressed mechanics
After going 7-0 with a 0.78 ERA, 79 strikeouts and holding opponents to a .150/.186/.218 batting line in his first nine starts for the Dodgers, Scherzer experienced significant regression and allowed a combined 12 runs in 14.2 innings pitched over his last three outings.
He believed to have solved an issue with mechanics heading into the Wild Card Game, and is more confident in having done so for his NLDS start.
“Just kind of clean up my mechanics a little bit. I thought we identified something on the lower half that I can kind of grab on to,” Scherzer said. “Threw a bullpen with it, felt pretty good, so full slate.”
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