LOS ANGELES — As Wednesday’s National League Wild Card Game progressed and the score remained knotted, a singular thought began to gain momentum in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ dugout — in the bottom of the ninth, with the St. Louis Cardinals on the other side.
“We all thought Albert [Pujols] was gonna hit a home run,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said. “It couldn’t have been written any better.”
Chris Taylor admittedly thought the same thing. But then he saw Pujols and Steven Souza Jr. line out, Cody Bellinger work a walk, and Cardinals reliever Alex Reyes hang a slider out over the plate. Taylor clobbered the pitch for a two-out, two-run walk-off homer, propelling the Dodgers to a 3-1 victory over St. Louis and pushing them into a highly anticipated NL Division Series showdown against the division rival San Francisco Giants.
For a Dodgers team scrounging for offense in the wake of Max Muncy’s freakish elbow injury, this was a better result.
Bellinger, the 2019 NL MVP, has navigated through horrific struggles in 2021, finishing the regular season with a .165/.240/.302 slash line in 350 plate appearances. But he reached base three times and stole second base twice with the Dodgers’ season on the line. With two outs, none on and the score still tied at 1 in the ninth, Bellinger faced left-handed reliever T.J. McFarland and worked his second walk, setting up an unfavorable matchup for Cardinals manager Mike Shildt.
Bellinger sported a .208 on-base percentage against lefties this season, 134 points shy of the major league average. Putting together that plate appearance, in that situation, was a sign that maybe he is finally feeling right again.
“At this point, it’s time to forget the season,” Bellinger said. “Just move on to the postseason, help this team win any way you can.”
Taylor was an All-Star for the first time this year, but he batted only .121/.212/.190 over his last 22 regular-season games, sustained a neck injury toward the tail end of that…
Source : espn
