The Dodgers played their 96th game of the 2021 season on Tuesday night in front of a Dodger Stadium crowd that started out at 42,344, of which a good many had already left with their team down 6-1 in the fifth inning to the NL West first-place San Francisco Giants and the Dodgers at risk of falling two games behind The Hated Ones in the Division standings.

But if Kirk Gibson taught us anything with his famous ‘tail light’ walk-off home run in Game-1 of the 1988 World Series, it’s that it is never a good idea to leave a Dodger game before the final out is recorded.

The final out of Tuesday night’s game was never recorded.

With the Dodgers trailing the Giants 6-5 and down to their final three outs, Giants submarine-throwing right-hander Tyler Rogers, who had been given the task of closing the game by Giants manager Gabe Kapler, led off the final frame by walking blazing hot Chris Taylor, who had already homered twice on the night, on four pitches. He then walked replacement third baseman Matt Beaty on five pitches to bring pinch-hitter Will Smith to the plate.

Tyler Rogers did not walk Will Smith.

Instead, on an 0-1 count, the 26-year-old Dodgers catcher deposited Tyler’s second pitch 419 feet into the Left Field Pavilion for a dramatic three-run walk-off home run.

“Just trying to get a pitch I could drive and hit,” Smith said of his dramatic game-winning home run. “The 0-0 was actually a pretty good pitch to hit, took it, and then, yeah, on a slider, put a pretty good swing on it and got it in the air to left and it got out.”

A good swing indeed.

“That was huge for us,” Taylor told reporters after the game about his team’s come-from-behind win, his two home-run night, and Smith’s dramatic walk-off blast. “Obviously, this is a huge series, and they took that first one from us and jumped out to an early lead in the second one. So, for us to stick with it and come back and find a way to win a game, that was probably our biggest win of the year so far.”

“It was huge; I’ll echo that with what CT said,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts added. “Division rival, team we’re chasing, that flipped the standings as far as two games, now we just gained a game, gained a couple games, obviously staring at a 6-1 deficit at one point…”

As noted by Roberts, the Dodgers now trail the Giants by one game in the division standings with two games remaining in the four-game series (and another three-game series in San Francisco next week).

Strap in and hang on, Dodger fans. This is gonna be good!

Play Ball!

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