Lance Lynn endured his familiar trouble with allowing home runs and it doomed the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 4-2 elimination loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game 3 of the National League Division Series.
The Diamondbacks swept the Dodgers and are in the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2007. Conversely, the Dodgers were eliminated in the NLDS for a second consecutive year and have suffered six postseason losses in a row. Each of which have come to an NL West opponent.
Prior to the game, Kiké Hernández and Miguel Rojas both spoke of needing to capitalize on being the team batting first. Hernández was inserted into the Dodgers lineup for the first time in the series, and another change by manager Dave Roberts was to move J.D. Martinez up to third in the order and Will Smith down to five.
Hernández produced the Dodgers’ first hit — a leadoff single in the third inning — but a double play followed and the Dodgers ultimately were on the offensive yet again.
Lynn navigated through some traffic to keep the game scoreless heading into the bottom of the third, when the Diamondbacks unleashed a barrage of home runs.
Geraldo Perdomo started it with a leadoff homer, and two batters later Ketel Marte sent a long ball sailing 428 feet into the stands in right field. Roberts inexplicably stuck with Lynn, and Christian Walker added onto his woes with a two-out solo homer.
Gabriel Moreno’s slicing fly ball down the right-field line appeared to make it back-to-back, but the umpires conferred and ruled it a foul ball, which was upheld after a crew chief review.
Moreno was undeterred, sending Lynn’s first pitch after the review to left-center field for a home run that was accompanied with a towering bat flip. Unfortunately for Moreno, he was later pinch-hit for due to taking a foul ball off his right hand.
Although Lynn provided more length than Clayton Kershaw and Bobby Miller, he added to the list of subpar performances from Dodgers starting pitchers. Kershaw, Miller and Lynn combined to allow 13 runs on 16 hits, and had just two strikeouts compared to three walks over 4.2 innings pitched.
According to Elias Sports, that’s the fewest innings pitched by starters in the first three games of a series in MLB postseason history.
Smith and Max Muncy breathed some life into the Dodgers with back-to-back two-out singles in the seventh inning, and Chris Taylor and Hernández kept the rally going with an RBI base hit each. The Diamondbacks then made a pitching change, which the Dodgers countered with by going to Austin Barnes batting for David Peralta.
Andrew Saalfrank needed all of one pitch to end the threat. Kolten Wong’s pinch-hit leadoff walk in the eighth inning was stranded by Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Martinez
Mookie Betts went 0-for-4 and Freddie Freeman also was hitless in his four at-bats. They finished a combined 1-for-21 in the NLDS, with the only hit a Freeman infield single.
Dodgers allow Diamondbacks to make MLB history
Th Diamondbacks became the first team in MLB history to hit four home runs during one inning in a postseason game.
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