LOS ANGELES — There hasn’t been a Game 7 in this baseball oasis since 1988, when Orel Hershiser pitched the Dodgers into a World Series.
This Game 7 will end it one way or another, will come down to tired arms and steel will. The Dodgers had plenty of both Tuesday.
Down 1-0 to Justin Verlander, they shook loose two runs in the sixth inning and again called on their fife-and-drum relief corps to get them home. This time it did, for a 3-1 win that sets up L.A.’s most compelling sporting event since Game 7 of Celtics-Lakers seven years ago.
“We just have a way of putting the past behind,” said Chris Taylor, always in the middle of everything, this time gouging out an RBI single to tie it 1-1 in the sixth before Corey Seager‘s sacrifice fly.
“I just tried to stay short in that at-bat and make contact. I can’t put all this into words right now but after tomorrow it might sink in.”
Game time temperature Tuesday was 67 degrees, or 36 degrees cooler than the same figure for Game 1 a week earlier.
That didn’t matter to Houston, which came to town with a .353 batting average with men in scoring position in the Series, and their good vibes abounded. Manager A.J. Hinch said his kids were in town and have been to school only six days this month. “As a Stanford graduate I don’t know what to think about that,” Hinch said.
He didn’t have to be a graduate of any school to think he had an edge in Game 6 with Justin Verlander performing.
Verlander’s teams had won the past five playoff games he has pitched. He had not lost a postseason game since Game 2 of the Division Series against Baltimore, when the Orioles won 7-6 while Verlander was working for Detroit.
With four days’ rest Verlander came out smoking. He threw first-pitch strikes to the first 10 Dodgers he faced. He retired the first four, gave up a base hit to center by Yasiel Puig, and then retired the next 11 through the fifth inning. He ended three consecutive innings with strikeouts.
Typical was a confrontation with Cody Bellinger in the second inning. The Dodgers slugger fell behind 0-and-2 but then took two balls. Verlander responded by blowing him away at 98 mph.
Joc Pederson got the same treatment later in the inning. At 2-and-2 Pederson spoiled a couple of pitches with foul balls. His reward was strike three on a nosediving curveball.
It again was Rich Hill’s misfortune to pitch against a strong Hall of Fame candidate, as it was in Game 2. And, again, Hll performed quite well.
He got through baseball’s most productive lineup with only one single, by Alex Bregman. Then George Springer, the leadoff man, strengthened his case for World Series MVP by lofting a home run barely over the right-center wall.
Hill settled down and got to the fifth inning, when Brian McCann led off with a single. That was followed by a down-the-line double from Marwin Gonzalez.
With none out, Hill fell behind Josh Reddick 3-and-0. But Hill bore down and struck out the ex-Dodger, then struck out Verlander. With first base open, the Dodgers intentionally walked Springer to set up a force play at all bases. Roberts came out to remove Hill, who blasted away a row of water cups in the dugout as he normally does. The crowd, weary of bullpen pyrotechnics in the last few games, booed Roberts significantly.
But Brandon Morrow came in and got Bregman on a grounder to shortstop.
The Dodgers rewarded him in the bottom of the sixth. Barnes singled on an 0-and-2 pitch and Verlander plunked Chase Utley in the foot.Taylor, devourer of fastballs, came up and carved a 97 mph pitch down the right-field line for a double that tied it. Then Corey Seager skied one that got to the track and brought home Utley for the 2-1 lead.
“I looked at that pitch on video and I put it where I wanted,” Verlander said of Taylor’s base hit. “He hit off the label. It found a hole down the line.”
The Dodgers were stressed in the seventh when Tony Watson walked Reddick. After Evan Gattis’ force play off Kenta Maeda, George Springer singled to shortstop.
But Maeda bit down hard and got Bregman on a fly ball. Jose Altuve was next, and only a talented scoop by first baseman Bellinger got him by a inch and saved the tie.
Now Verlander was out, and Pederson took Joe Musgrove over the left-field wall, his third home run of the Series, for a 3-1 lead in the seventh.
Here came Kenley Jansen, to push his Series pitch count past 100. All hands, including his, will be on the Game 7 deck.