The playoffs started with Blake Treinen rescuing a wobbly Dodgers bullpen, the 36-year-old right-hander changing Michael Kopech and escaping a two-on, one-out eighth-inning jam and throwing 39 pitches for a five-out save within the Nationwide League Division Sequence opener in opposition to the San Diego Padres.
Saturday night time was payback time, with left-hander Alex Vesia throwing Treinen a life preserver after Treinen yielded a run, gave up two extra singles and hit a batter and pushed his pitch rely to 33 because the Dodgers moved perilously near blowing a three-run lead in Sport 2 of the World Sequence.
Vesia, with nervousness coursing by the veins of 52,725 followers in Chavez Ravine, changed Treinen with the bases loaded and two outs and wanted just one pitch to retire pinch-hitter Jose Trevino on a fly ball to middle discipline to avoid wasting a 4-2 victory that gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead within the best-of-seven collection.
“Blake limited damage, he made pitches when he had to,” second baseman Kiké Hernández mentioned. “He wasn’t able to finish the game, but like we’ve been able to do all October, if somebody doesn’t get the job done, somebody’s gonna come behind him and pick him up, and that’s what Vesia did.”
Left-hander Anthony Banda changed excellent starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and bought the final two outs of the seventh inning, Kopech retired the aspect so as within the eighth to protect a 4-1 lead, and it regarded just like the Dodgers, who gave up just one hit by eight innings, would cruise to a win.
However Treinen, who threw 22 pitches in 1⅓ innings of Friday night time’s 6-3 Sport 1 victory, bumped into fast bother when Juan Soto led off the ninth with a single to proper discipline and took second on a wild pitch.
Treinen struck out slugger Aaron Choose with a nasty, down-and-away, 85-mph sweeper, however Giancarlo Stanton ripped a tough grounder off the third-base bag for an RBI single that made it 4-2. Jazz Chisholm Jr. capped an eight-pitch at-bat with a single to proper, and Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
“I was living and dying with every pitch,” mentioned fellow reliever Daniel Hudson, who was watching from the left-field bullpen. “That’s about as stressful as it gets, man.”
Hudson has been in Treinen’s sneakers. He was the nearer for the World Sequence-winning Washington Nationals in 2019, he pitched out of a number of jams that postseason, and he threw the ultimate pitch of a Sport 7 win in Houston.
“I get more nervous watching than I do when I’m actually on the mound,” Hudson mentioned. “Seriously, it sucks. I hate it, especially in these types of games, maybe because it’s an out-of-my-control type of thing, and all I can do is sit there.”
Treinen was hardly quaking in his cleats, regardless of the tremendous mess he had gotten himself into.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Treinen reacts as he leaves the mound within the ninth inning of Sport 2 of the World Sequence in opposition to the Yankees at Dodger Stadium Friday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Occasions)
“You definitely feel the competition, but I play this game for God, and no pressure from man gets to me like it used to,” Treinen mentioned. “I don’t really have the anxiety or the stress of the moment.”
The extra pitches Treinen threw, the extra strain there was on supervisor Dave Roberts to make a transfer, “but I just felt that Blake had enough stuff to get to [Anthony] Volpe in that spot,” Roberts mentioned.
Treinen rewarded his supervisor’s religion by getting Volpe to chase one other down-and-away sweeper for a strikeout, however he clearly was gassed. Roberts summoned Vesia to face left-handed-hitting catcher Austin Wells. Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone countered with the right-handed-hitting Trevino.
One 93-mph fastball on the internal half of the plate produced a routine fly ball to middle discipline, and the Dodgers had been celebrating a victory that moved them to inside two wins of their eighth World Sequence title.
“It’s unbelievable,” Vesia mentioned of his first World Sequence save. “This is everything to me, playing on the biggest stage with the two best teams you could possibly play for, the biggest franchises with the most history, the list goes on. It’s very special.
“And if you would have told me 2½ weeks ago when I was taken out of the Padres game [because of a rib-cage strain], I would have told you I probably wouldn’t be here pitching and on the roster. I can’t say enough about what the training staff has done. Every day we got a little better, and we’re good.”
Vesia missed the NL Championship Sequence in opposition to the New York Mets however confirmed in Sport 1 of the World Sequence that he was absolutely recovered, hanging two of three batters in a scoreless eighth.
“Getting that inning was great,” Vesia mentioned. “It was a huge boost of confidence to know that, one, my velocity is there, and two, making sure I was controlling all my pitches in the zone.”
Vesia, who went 5-4 with a 1.76 earned-run common in 67 regular-season video games, has given up just one hit, struck out six and walked one in 4⅓ innings of 5 playoff video games.
“In a perfect world, you’d like to finish your inning … but I had full faith when [Vesia] came in,” Treinen mentioned. “Ves has been our most lock-down guy all year, consistently. He’s had a phenomenal year and has pitched in huge spots, and what he did tonight was no different.
“We’ve all been battle-tested. If one of us falls short in the task at hand, somebody else comes in and picks him up. I’d like to think I’ve been able to do that for some of my teammates in the past, just like any one of the guys, and that’s why we’re a close unit.”
