Kershaw’s pitching gem pulls Dodgers even with Cubs

Thanks to that player, the Dodgers emerged from a tension-filled weekend with a split in the series and now head back to Los Angeles for the next three games beginning with Game 3 on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.

Miguel Montero’s dramatic pinch-hit grand slam Saturday not only won the game for the Cubs, 8-4 over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field, but it may have saved their season.

“We’ll be ready tomorrow”, Gonzalez said. We’ll have live updates at wgnradio.com throughout the game. “We know we can beat them”.

The Cubs had no answer for Clayton Kershaw, who dominated them over seven innings.

But against the Cubs, a big decision backfired.

The lone run was a homer from old friend Adrian Gonzalez, the former Red Sox first baseman who also had a two-run single off Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman in Game 1.

Roberts battled wits with Maddon in the eighth inning after Ben Zobrist led off with a double. Especially when those walks were ordered to Jason Heyward (.230/.306/.325 line this year) and Chris Coghlan (.188/.290/.318). “Kershaw can’t pitch every game”, he said. The fact that Kershaw is pitching makes Game 2 pretty much a must-win for the Dodgers, if they have any hope of besting an outstanding Cubs team. And if he was trying to play to Blanton’s strengths by working around lefties, Roberts wasn’t doing it in a way that made sense-because after ordering Blanton to walk those two left-handed hitters, he chose to leave him in to face another lefty in Montero. Roberts chose to stick with Blanton — Chicago would have batted righty Willson Contreras if the Dodgers brought in a lefty. “I’ve trusted him all year long”.

“We’ve kind of proved we can overcome adversity in the game”, slugger Kris Bryant said. It just didn’t work out. But it was — our guys fought. But Utley lined into a game-ending double play. He meant to break another “back-foot slider” down and in to the left-handed Montero. He sent Blanton’s 0-2 pitch to right to clear the bases. I think that command and velocity will tell you a lot early on. I think he’s added a couple new wrinkles to what he’s doing out there, successfully, and with that he’s pitched some complete games, too. Got ahead and tried to bury a slider and I didn’t and got lucky on that one, actually. It wasn’t even a awful pitch-but Gonzalez is still a very good hitter. The teams combined for just five hits for the lowest total in a playoff game since the Cardinals and Pirates had four in Game 4 of their 2013 NL Division Series. “You definitely don’t want to go (down) 2-0”.

Cleveland Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor, left, and center fielder Rajai Davis celebrate their 2-1 win against the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 of baseball’s American League Championship Series in Cleveland, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016. Kershaw is pitching on just two day’s rest after he got the save in Game 5 of the NLDS against Washington on Thursday. It set the tone for a victory the Dodgers needed to even this best-of-seven NLCS at one game apiece.

Chapman struck out Corey Seager and Yasiel Puig before Adrian Gonzalez lined a 102 miles per hour fastball back up the middle for a tying, two-run single.

Hendricks labored during a 27-pitch third inning in which he issued two walks with two outs, but he did gain some redemption when he struck out Gonzalez to end the threat. Initially, he did his job, blowing away Corey Seager with a 101-mph fastball for one strikeout, getting Yasiel Puig to swing through another for the second out. “We play nine innings hard. You’re going to close this thing out, ‘” Grandal said.