Gavin Lux‘s second-inning sacrifice fly and Max Muncy‘s two-out solo home run in the bottom of the ninth was the sum and total of the the National League West first-place Los Angeles Dodgers’ offense in their ugly 10-2 loss to NL West second-place San Diego Padres in Game-2 of the 2024 NLDS on Sunday evening.
To add insult to injury (literally), although Dodgers eight-time All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman tried to play with his sprained right ankle suffered against these same Padres on September 26, he had to come out of the game in the top of the sixth inning, having gone 0-for-2 with a strikeout and a line out to right.
“I got word in the middle of the game that his ankle was really bothering him and he was really… yeah, he was down, really down, and just couldn’t keep going, so we had no other choice,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Freeman postgame. “He’s doing everything he can, I don’t know what his status will be like for Game-3, but for tonight, we had no other option.”
The silver lining to this otherwise dark cloud is that Monday is an off day for the two teams (and Freeman’s ankle) before Game-3 of the best-of five series on Tuesday at Petco Park, so there’s that.
Play Ball!
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Will always root for the Dodgers, but I believe pitching wins championships and the team’s pitching this season has been uncharacteristically bad. Injuries have decimated the 2024 Dodgers season, but there’s no crying in baseball. I will “root, root, root for the home team, if they don’t win it will be a shame…”
Darvish pitched the gem in Game 2 that he needed to pitch in 2017 WS Game 7.