LOS ANGELES — For the first two games of the National League Championship Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers will head back to Philadelphia, the site of a four-game sweep in late August that started a season-long eight-game losing streak for the Dodgers.
But memories of Philadelphia don’t necessarily elicit negative emotions for the Dodgers, who were outscored 27-5 by the Phillies in that series. Because of the beatings they absorbed, the players say they found out how much manager Joe Torre believed in them. Or how crazy he was.
The Dodgers were outplayed by such a wide margin in Philadelphia that Torre called a team meeting in Washington, where they were about to start the next segment of their 10-game trip.
“You’re going to win the division,” Torre told them.
Umm … OK …
“Where is this faith coming from?” pitcher Derek Lowe said he recalled thinking at the time.
But, Lowe added, “It was important to have our leader feel that way.”
Because soon the players felt that way. They passed the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West, won the division, swept the Chicago Cubs to win their first playoff series in 20 years and punched their ticket to the NLCS, which opens Thursday at Citizens Bank Park.
Their faith in themselves will be tested again.
When the Dodgers went into the NL Division Series against the Cubs, they said weren’t the same team that lost five of seven games to them in late May and early June. And they were right.
Manny Ramirez wasn’t there in May. Casey Blake wasn’t either.
The same isn’t true of their past encounters with the Phillies.
Ramirez was there. Blake was there.
The results were dead even, as the Dodgers won the four games at Dodger Stadium and the Phillies won the four games at Citizens Bank Park.
What Torre might find disconcerting is how the Dodgers’ pitching fared against the NL East champion Phillies, who secured their berth in the NLCS by beating the Milwaukee Brewers in four games in their Division Series.
Torre has long insisted that with or without Ramirez in his lineup, pitching would dictate the Dodgers’ postseason fate. Pitching was what lifted the Dodgers to their victory over the Cubs, as starters Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley and Hiroki Kuroda combined for a 1.42 ERA in the three-game sweep.
The Cubs had a lineup consisting almost exclusively of right-handed hitters — Jim Edmonds was the only left-hander who started every game of the series for manager Lou Piniella — something the Dodgers used to their advantage. The Dodgers faced the Cubs 10 times this season, including the three times in the postseason, and in those games Dodger left-handers did not throw a pitch.
The Phillies, on the other hand, have plenty of left-handed bats that could trouble the Dodgers’ pitching staff.
MVP candidate Ryan Howard (48 home runs, 146 RBI) and Chase Utley (33 HRs, 104 RBI) bat left; Jimmy Rollins (106 runs, 47 steals) and Shane Victorino (.293 average, 36 steals) are switch hitters.
The Dodgers’ ERA against the Phillies was 5.48, higher than it was against any other NL opponent. The only other team against which the Dodgers had a team ERA above 5.00 was the New York Mets, whose lineup was also stacked with lefties.
If left-hander Hong-Chih Kuo is unavailable for the NLCS — he missed the division series because of elbow problems — the Dodgers’ only two left-handed pitchers will likely be Joe Beimel and 20-year-old Clayton Kershaw.
Beimel, a situational left-hander, held the Phillies to one run in 4 1/3 innings over five games in the regular season. Kershaw started twice against the Phillies and was 0-1 with an 8.10 ERA, giving up nine runs in 10 innings.
Kuroda, who won Game 3 of the NLDS for the Dodgers, had the most success against the Phillies, posting a 1-0 record in two starts and limiting them to two runs in 13 innings.
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