Dodgers Sweep Diamondbacks, Astros Advance

In the meantime, the job is only just beginning for the Dodgers.

The Los Angeles Dodgers completed a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks last night to advance to the National League Championship Series.

The Dodgers lead 2-0 and can eliminate the Diamondbacks when the National League Division Series moves to Phoenix on Monday. Every Dodger continued to have quality at-bats tonight, making Greinke work hard for those outs. The rookie first baseman fell into the Dodgers dugout as he snagged Jeff Mathis’ popup, almost dropping into the lap of manager Dave Roberts. “I could call it disrespectful and classless, but they don’t have a lovely pool at their old park and must have really wanted to see what one was like”, said Diamondbacks President and CEO Derrick Hall (oof). He’d allowed just two hits and one earned run, a solo shot by Descalso in the fifth that pulled Arizona to within 2-1.

It doesn’t necessarily matter who they play in the NLCS, as they’ll have home field advantage regardless. “They want to do it”.

Greinke – the ex-Dodger signed to a $206.5 million, six-year contract by Arizona before the 2016 season – gave up three runs and four hits in five-plus innings. Game 2 featured an 8-5 win with Kenta Maeda on the mound, and it was LA’s Yu Darvish who captured Game 3 with a final score of 3-1. That much was evident by the team’s celebration on the field after Kenley Jansen struck out Paul Goldschmidt to end the game. We’ve been talking about this the whole year, since January when Justin (Turner) and I re-signed.

Mounted police guarded the Chase Field pool after Game 3.

The Dodgers defeated the Nationals in five taut games in last year’s NLDS, then lost to the Cubs in the NLCS, but both teams seem vulnerable this season. Before the bottles were popped, Dave Roberts had a message for the team “from the beginning of spring training, we said we knew we were the best team in all of baseball, we proved it this series”.

“If you’ve got to pick one guy to stop this situation we’re in, I think we’ve found the right guy in Zack Greinke“, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said Saturday.

Darvish’s fastball averaged about 94 miles per hour this season, the highest of his career, but whether because of the dialed-up October adrenaline or the 14-day layoff he had between starts, Darvish’s heater had some extra giddy-up to it Monday night, sitting at 96 and touching 98. Darvish limited the damage to the lone run after a spectacular inning ending catch by Bellinger as he caught it falling over the dugout railing. “We get him out of there. The series is not over”.

Veteran Daniel Descalso, who provided a major boost off the bench and as a part-time starting second baseman this season, said the Diamondbacks can still get better. But for an Arizona batting lineup that had slapped four home runs off Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw two games back and scored five runs in each of the past two outings, it could’ve been enough. The club was able to drive-in Taylor in after a Cody Bellinger RBI groundout to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.