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The Dodgers are on the verge of finishing the National League Championship Series before you can say New York twice.
They’re turning the Mets into small-town blues that are melting away.
They’re defrocking them down to their vagabond…oh, forget it, one shouldn’t need to crib from a corny song to describe what is happening here.
Fact: The Dodgers are a thoroughly better team than the Mets. Fact: The Dodgers are perfectly set up to finish this shebang by the end of the week.
On a wind-blown Wednesday night at Citi Field, the Dodgers were acting like kings of the hill and tops of the — sorry, can’t help it — in a dominating 8-0 victory, giving them a 2-1 lead with their two best two starting pitchers on deck.
Good thing the Mets are in a city that doesn’t sleep — last one, promise — because they won’t be getting much of it in the next 48 hours.
In Thursday’s Game 4, the Dodgers will start Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who struggled with injuries for much of the summer but held the San Diego Padres scoreless in five innings in his last postseason start.
“Just to get him in the postseason, I think that’s been pretty exciting,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Those are things he can sort of build on.”
In Friday’s Game 5, they will start Jack Flaherty, who held the Mets scoreless in seven innings in his last postseason start.
“With Flaherty, I feel like we can kind of extend him a little more,” said Roberts.
They truly have a legitimate chance to close this out before they return to Los Angeles, especially after the way they devastated the Mets on Wednesday despite having their ace Luis Severino on the mound and a rollicking, singing crowd behind him.
The fans roared. The Mets stumbled. The fans chanted. The Mets caved. The fans left in the sixth inning. The Dodgers kept piling on.
Starter Walker Buehler was good enough. A 10-hit offense was better than enough. And the Mets weren’t even close to being enough.
“I mean, really we’ve just got to play,” said Mookie Betts, describing his team’s workmanlike attitude. “There’s no magic formula. We’ve just got to play the game how we always play. Can’t do more. Can’t do less. It’s really just the winning mindset, just play a full 27 outs.”
The entire game, and the postseason so far, was epitomized by two swings from Shohei Ohtani.
With one hack in the sixth inning, he fouled a ball off his groin before striking out in obvious and embarrassing pain. With another hack two innings later, he launched a 410-foot three-run homer high over the right-field foul pole for his first home run of the series.
He was vulnerable, then invincible, just like the Dodgers have appeared in an October that seems possibly headed for November.
They nearly collapsed in the division series against the San Diego Padres before finishing with a dominating two victories. They then badly stumbled in Game 2 against the Mets in this NLCS before storming back to reassert themselves.
“It’s an important game,” said Roberts before Wednesday’s first pitch. “If you’re looking at it as a five-game series, that’s kind of how I’m looking at it, so to win this first game is really important.”
The Dodgers acted like it. The Mets did not.
Despite playing in a cozy stadium where fans sing along with Francisco Lindor’s walk-up music — “My Girl” — and dance to the strains of infielder Jose Iglesias singing, “OMG,” the Mets just weren’t inspired, and gave away the game almost before it started.
In the second inning against Severino, with Max Muncy on first after a leadoff walk, Teoscar Hernández hit a bouncer in front of the plate. Catcher Francisco Alvarez made a horrible mistake, throwing to second instead of getting the sure out at first. The ball bounced past Iglesias for an error and both runners were safe.
Then Severino dropped a Gavin Lux bouncer and blew a chance at a double play, then he botched a grounder from Will Smith to score a run, and a Tommy Edman fly ball gave the Dodgers another run.
Two runs in five batters and only one ball leaves the infield. The Mets were deflated, an observation which only became more clear in the bottom of the second when Buehler struck out Alvarez and Lindor with the bases loaded.
The rest of the game was controlled by a Dodger team that made itself at home with homers by not only Ohtani, but Kiké Hernández and Muncy.
Just another New York night owned by — sorry, it must be said — Los Angeles, Los Angeles.
