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» » Dodgers feed off Corey Seager, take aggressive approach to Braves - OCRegister

Dodgers feed off Corey Seager, take aggressive approach to Braves - OCRegister

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Mookie Betts knew he had to do something, anything, if he wanted to be playing baseball next week.

Hours before Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter acknowledged his 1-for-7 slump to begin the series. Betts was at least making the Braves’ pitchers work. He saw 16 pitches in Game 1 and another 25 in Game 2. But he was not the proverbial straw stirring the drink, the hitter whose example guides the way for his teammates to score runs.

“I lead off. I have to take ownership of that,” Betts said. “I’ve been doing it all year. I can’t stop now. I haven’t done it these last couple games. I need to get rolling and try and spark some energy.”

The status quo was not an option Wednesday for any of the Dodgers. They were down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series and, until the late innings of Game 2, seemingly disinterested in scoring.

Betts swung at Kyle Wright’s first pitch Wednesday and hit an unremarkable ground ball to third base. It forced Johan Camargo to move, enough that his throw to first demanded perfection to retire the speedy Betts. The throw was not perfect. After a replay review confirmed Betts was safe, the Dodgers had a baserunner.

Corey Seager hit the very next pitch to left field for an RBI double. The rout was on. Ten more runs scored before the first inning was over.

The Dodgers’ 15-3 win was a decisive departure from anything the Braves saw in Game 1 and for most of Game 2. If they are able to turn the tables in the series, it will be because they started doing something Seager has been doing all season. The straw that stirred the drink was not their leadoff hitter, but their slugging shortstop.

Seager is unabashedly aggressive, a counterforce to his more patient teammates. The Dodgers collectively swung at the first pitch in 30 percent of their plate appearances during the abbreviated regular season. Seager swung at the first pitch 49 percent of the time, fifth among qualified hitters. It’s an approach he has stuck with in good times and bad since he debuted five years ago.

That stubbornness inspires a particular kind of criticism. When Seager is going bad, he faces questions about being more patient. When Seager is going good – and he’s been going good all season – it begs the question of why his teammates don’t swing earlier and more often as well.

In Game 1, the Dodgers didn’t put the first pitch of any at-bat into play until the fourth inning of their 5-1 loss. In Game 2, this didn’t happen until the seventh inning – coincidentally or not, immediately after Seager hit a three-run home run to spark an almost-come-from-behind rally.

In the first inning of Game 3 alone, the Dodgers put the first pitch in play four times: twice for a single, once for a home run by Edwin Rios, and once for a double by Seager himself.

“Coming out of the gates they were swinging,” Wright said. “They put the pressure on right away. Once I got behind in the counts, they continued to hit my mistakes.”

This was not a deliberate change in strategy, said Max Muncy, whose grand slam off Grant Dayton gave the Dodgers an 11-0 lead.

“Our game plan the first three games so far has been the same,” he said. “Today we were able to jump on the pitches we wanted to. The last two games we missed those pitches or fouled them off. The game plan was still the same.”

What changed?

In the seventh inning of Game 2, the Dodgers finally collected a big hit. Seager’s three-run home run against A.J. Minter injected needed life into the lineup and cut the Braves’ lead to 7-3. Then in the ninth inning, a pattern emerged.

Seager hit a double against Josh Tomlin to score Betts. Two batters later, Muncy hit a two-run home run that brought the Dodgers within 8-6. Seager’s hit came on the second pitch of the at-bat; Muncy’s came on the third.

Closer Mark Melancon relieved Tomlin and the Dodgers remained aggressive. Will Smith watched two strikes then swung at the third, and reached on a fielding error by second baseman Ozzie Albies. Cody Bellinger watched a curveball for a strike, then hit a run-scoring triple to right field. A.J. Pollock fouled off a cut fastball, then grounded out on the next pitch to end the game.

The rally came too late to win the game, but a tone had been set.

“We wanted to build off last night,” Seager said. “All nine innings we put together good ABs, scratched some runs there in the ninth. We just wanted to keep that going. Fortunately enough we did.”

As Seager has gone, so have the Dodgers. He batted .307 with 15 home runs and 41 RBIs in 52 games during the regular season. Stretched out over 162 games, that’s a 47-homer, 128-RBI pace. He was a positive force as the Dodgers swept the Brewers, then the Padres, to advance to the NLCS.

Max Fried struck out Seager in each of his first two plate appearances of Game 1. So did Ian Anderson in Game 2. It wasn’t until Seager’s home run against Minter that the rest of the Dodgers’ lineup awoke.

Seager played only four innings of Game 3, but he finished 3 for 4 with three RBIs. Looking closer, he needed only seven pitches to collect his last five hits.

“It’s not necessarily not being aggressive early,” Seager said, “but it’s winning the pitches you should win: trying not to swing at the borderline pitches, trying to win early in the count to set up later in the count to get it back in your favor. It’s little things like that. It’s not necessarily going up there and just taking, trying to get it until you get two strikes. It’s about winning the pitches you need to win.”

The Dodgers must win three of their next four games to reach the World Series. Thanks in large part to their hottest hitter, that looks downright feasible.

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