Dodgers Flex Their Unlimited Depth with Chris Taylor’s Hollywood Ending vs. Cards

It would have been a heck of a story if Albert Pujols had delivered the big hit to sink the very team with which he began his Hall of Fame career in the National League Wild Card Game.

Instead, it was Chris Taylor. Not that the Los Angeles Dodgers are complaining.

As a sort of ongoing punishment for the slump that followed his first All-Star selection in July, Taylor began Wednesday’s do-or-die tilt against the St. Louis Cardinals on the bench. But manager Dave Roberts called his name for defensive duty in left field in the seventh inning, and he didn’t miss his chance to make his mark offensively two innings later.

With two outs and Cody Bellinger at second base, Taylor cranked a hanging Alex Reyes slider at 110.7 mph and with more than enough length to clear the left-field fence. Like that, his walk-off two-run home run delivered the Dodgers a 3-1 victory and sent the 53,193 fans packed into Dodger Stadium into an utter frenzy:

The win was the Dodgers’ 107th of 2021, and it secured a postseason matchup the likes of which has never before been seen in Major League Baseball.

Dodgers Players of the Game

• LF Chris Taylor: 1-for-2, 1 HR, 1 R, 2 RBI. In two words, see above. In one word, duh.
• 3B Justin Turner: 1-for-4, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI. It didn’t decide the game, but his solo home run in the fourth knotted the score at 1-1.
• CF Cody Bellinger: 1-for-2, 2 BB, 1 R, 2 SB. The 2019 NL MVP had some of the best at-bats of any hitter on either team and even stole two bags against Yadier Molina.
• Dodgers relievers: 4.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 6 K. The Dodgers surely didn’t plan on three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer lasting only 4.1 innings, but the five relievers who followed him more than picked up the slack. 

Cardinals Players of the Game

• SP Adam Wainwright: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 1 R, 5 K. This wasn’t  his signature postseason moment, but outpitching Scherzer with a gutsy performance was a nice cap on an outstanding throwback year for the 40-year-old hurler.
• 2B Tommy Edman: 3-for-5, 1 R, 2 SB. He was basically the only Cardinals hitter who had a good night offensively, and he also shined on the other side of the ball with a slick play up the middle in the second and a key double play in the third.

As They Have Been All Season, the Dodgers Just Kept Coming

If you only knew about the various pieces the Dodgers have lost throughout the course of 2021, you could justifiably conclude that they’re lucky to be where they are right now.

What was a star-laden starting rotation at the start of the season is now without rising star Dustin May (Tommy John surgery) and three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw (forearm) because of injuries. Trevor Bauer, a Cy Young Award winner in his own right, has been on administrative leave since he was accused of sexual assault in June.

Lineup-wise, Corey Seager missed much of the season with a broken hand, and now Max Muncy is out with an elbow injury. Two years removed from winning the NL MVP, Bellinger has also battled injuries and made replacement-level players blush when he was healthy. Mookie Betts, a fellow MVP, and Taylor were good at times but finished cold.

And yet, the Dodgers not only survived but thrived as they tied their club record for wins and paced all teams this year with a plus-269 run differential.

The willingness of their front office to go all-in on a deal for Scherzer and Trea Turner ahead of the July 30 trade deadline is a big reason why, but there’s no better time than now to share in Wainwright’s appreciation of just how much Roberts has to work with:

Among the remaining playoff teams, only Atlanta and the Milwaukee Brewers had more guys take as many as 30 plate appearances during the regular season. The Dodgers pulled liberally from that depth to include 16 position players on their roster for the Wild Card Game, and Taylor was but one of six of those who got deployed off the bench. 

Yes, that technically includes Gavin Lux, even though he didn’t actually get to hit after he was announced as a pinch-hitter to lead off the ninth.

Roberts pulled him back in favor of Pujols to get a right-on-left matchup against T.J. McFarland. It was a good call that just missed paying off in dramatic fashion when Pujols, who was quite good in blue after the Dodgers picked him up off the scrap heap following his release from the Los Angeles Angels, hit a 106.6 mph line drive that found Harrison Bader’s glove.

When Taylor came to the plate, he only had eight hits in his last 73 at-bats dating back to Aug. 27. But given that he’s been a good hitter in each of the last five years, it was only a matter of time before he ran into one. And he did.

To the extent that any aspect of the Dodgers can ever be a secret weapon, their bullpen was indeed one of those down the stretch. It paced MLB with a 2.42 ERA after the deadline, in part thanks to ERAs in the 1.00s from Kenley Jansen, Blake Treinen and Corey Knebel. 

Though Roberts also pushed the right buttons with Joe Kelly and Brusdar Graterol in the fifth and sixth innings, it was that trio that got the highest-leverage assignments on Wednesday. Each got their laughs, but Jansen got the last and the biggest with a strikeout of Tyler O’Neill to strand Edman at second base in the ninth:

Perhaps even more so than what the Dodgers did right, the real story here might be what the Cardinals did wrong. Namely, go 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position after nabbing their one and only run on a wild pitch by Scherzer in the first inning.

Nevertheless, the Redbirds’ story is over now. It did have that one wild chapter in which they won 17 in a row and 21 out of their last 25 games, but they just weren’t good enough to hang with the big boys on either side of it.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, are on to face maybe the biggest test they can possibly face this October.

What’s Next for the Dodgers

Come Friday evening, the Dodgers will take on the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

This will be the first-ever postseason meeting between the two longtime rivals. And as noted by MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, the circumstances are extraordinary even on top of that:

If the Dodgers defeat the Giants, it’s hard to imagine it coming easily. Neither Muncy nor Kershaw is walking through that door any time soon, and the Dodgers can rightfully be worried about Scherzer after his flop against the Cardinals made it three bad starts in a row for him.

For now, though, these worries can wait. The Dodgers can rest easy simply knowing they’re still alive and that the bottom of their bag of tricks hasn’t yet been discovered.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.