by Molly Knight
When Kemp’s power returned his good mood followed close behind. Gone was the brooding outfielder who announced he would rather play every day for a last-place team than sit on the bench for a championship contender. After two-plus years of ups and downs, Kemp was back on track at the plate and in the clubhouse. He was hitting even better than Puig, and seemed much more equipped emotionally to lead the Dodgers in October.
Kemp and Puig were never close, and their relationship became further strained in September during a game in Colorado. With Kemp on deck and Puig on first, Adrian Gonzalez singled to right and Puig trotted to second. Kemp then struck out. Puig came home a batter later on a Hanley Ramirez double. As Puig high-fived his teammates after scoring the run, Kemp chased him the length of the dugout and screamed at him. After being separated by Mattingly, an enraged Kemp stormed down the tunnel toward the clubhouse. It was an odd time for a quarrel. The Dodgers were in the middle of an eight-run inning, and would go on to win the game 11–3. Afterward, both Kemp and Puig declined to talk about what led to the incident, but the best explanation seemed to be that Kemp was angry that Puig, one of the team’s fastest runners, had failed to go from first to third on Gonzalez’s hit. Ironically, it was the same thing Puig had screamed at Gonzalez for the year before.
When asked about his relationship with Kemp months later, Puig told CBS Sports, “He stated he’s the best outfielder in the league. I think there are better outfielders.”
But at the time, Mattingly downplayed the incident. “Oh, just talking in the dugout, same old things,” said Mattingly. “We’re like the ’72 A’s.” He may have been trying to gloss over what happened, but in doing so Mattingly compared his squad to a club whose members hated each other so much that one locker room fight led to its starting catcher suffering a crushed disk in his neck.
Forty-eight hours later, Puig was involved in another altercation with his teammates. After the Denver series, the Dodgers flew to Chicago to play the Cubs. The club opted to do its annual rookie hazing on the trip. Veterans wanted rookies to come to the front of the bus to sing on the way from O’Hare to their downtown hotel, but Puig and others were playing dominoes, blocking the aisle. When some players asked to stop for pizza, the rest told the driver to continue to the hotel and circle back for the guys getting food. But Puig had opened the door to the luggage bay on the bus so he could retrieve his bag, and the driver couldn’t move until the door was shut. Greinke got out and threw Puig’s bag into the street. Puig responded by pushing Greinke, but J. P. Howell intervened to stop Puig.
The Dodgers had a more pressing issue than Puig not getting along with his teammates, however: their bullpen was melting down. Going into the 2014 season, Colletti had filled the Dodgers bullpen with expensive former closers way past their prime. He inked former Indians closer Chris Perez to a multimillion-dollar deal, and re-signed Brian Wilson to a one-year, $10 million contract for 2014 with a $9.5 million player option for 2015. At first blush the Wilson deal was seen as a steal. Since he had pitched so well for the Dodgers in September and October 2013, the club had hoped it could count on Wilson to set up for Jansen in 2014 as well. But he wasn’t the same player. Wilson gave up eight earned runs in his first six innings in 2014, and when Mattingly demoted him from the eighth-inning job, he pouted. Some of his teammates believed he threw his fastball in the mid-80s in protest and that he wouldn’t bother throwing hard and risking injury until the 2015 season, when he was pitching for another contract. Wilson’s kooky clubhouse behavior hadn’t bugged teammates as much the year before when he dominated on the mound. But now that he struggled, his oddball persona started to grate. He would finish the season with a 4.66 ERA and minimal life on his fastball.
Chris Perez was just as ineffective, striking out only thirty-nine batters against twenty-five walks and posting a 4.27 ERA. But unlike Wilson, who had pitched brilliantly the year before, Perez’s numbers were no surprise: they were almost identical to what he did in his final year in Cleveland. Because they were veterans, Perez and Wilson could not be demoted, and they were owed too much money to cut. As if that weren’t bad enough, the bullpen’s hardest thrower, Chris Withrow, suffered a season-ending injury early in the year, which left J. P. Howell and Jansen as the club’s only two reliable relievers. The Dodgers’ starting rotation would be brilliant in 2014, notching a 3.20 ERA—second-best in baseball. But their relief core posted a 3.80 ERA, which was twenty-second out of thirty teams. With stellar starting pitching but poor defense and relief pitching, the 2014 Dodgers roster seemed built to cannibalize itself. What good was getting out to a lead if you couldn’t protect it?
The club’s poorly constructed roster didn’t seem to matter much during the regular season, however, since talent usually wins out over the course of 162 games. The Dodgers streaked past the Giants in September and captured their second-straight NL West crown by six games. Despite the club not being nearly as exciting as it was the season before, the Dodgers’ ninety-four wins were two better than what they posted during their 2013 campaign.
• • •
But as the club was soon reminded, playoff baseball is a different game altogether. In October the best offense is often defense. Pitchers throw harder and fielders tighten screws. Scoring runs becomes much more difficult. The best way to survive and advance is to give up as few runs as possible.
The Dodgers weren’t built that way. With the exception of Adrian Gonzalez at first and Juan Uribe at third, every Dodger fielder was below average, which made it unlikely that the club’s pitchers would be bailed out by an incredible play that prevented runs from scoring. (Puig was an above-average right fielder, but he was playing out of position in center.) Compounding that problem: Dodger starting pitchers didn’t have the luxury of just getting through five scoreless frames and then turning the ball over to the bullpen to close out the game—the formula the Kansas City Royals used to make an improbable run to the World Series—because their relief corps was such a mess. J. P. Howell had been excellent for the Dodgers for the first five months of the season, but he broke down in September. He gave up just six earned runs in his first forty-six innings of 2014. In his final three innings before the playoffs began he gave up seven.
Clayton Kershaw was aware of the Dodgers’ bullpen struggles when he took the mound in Game 1 of the NLDS. The Dodgers drew the Cardinals in the first round, giving them a chance to avenge their 2013 exit. On the surface, they appeared to have more of an advantage. Matt Kemp was healthy. Michael Wacha—the St. Louis pitcher who shut them out twice in the 2013 NLCS—was not. And the Dodgers had home-field advantage in a short series, so Kershaw and Greinke could each pitch perhaps twice. Los Angeles was experiencing an unforgiving October heat wave, and when Game 1 started it was ninety-six degrees. Dodger Stadium is a pitchers’ park except on hot days before sunset, when the ball flies off the bat much farther than usual. The Cardinals’ seldom-used outfielder Randal Grichuk took advantage of the conditions and clubbed a first-inning home run off Kershaw just inside the left-field foul pole. Kershaw retired the next sixteen batters in order before giving up another solo home run to Matt Carpenter. But the Dodgers were cruising. They scored six runs to knock Adam Wainwright out of the game in the fifth, and Kershaw took a 6–2 lead into the seventh.
That should have been more than enough. Matt Holliday started the Cardinals’ seventh inning innocently enough with a single to center. Jhonny Peralta then singled Holliday to second. Yadier Molina singled on the first pitch he saw to load the bases for Matt Adams, who then singled Holliday home. With the bases loaded and no out, Kershaw struck out Pete Kozma on three pitches. But Jon Jay singled in Peralta to cut the Dodgers’ lead to 6–4. The Cardinals’ subbed talented rookie Oscar Taveras in as a pinch hitter, and Kershaw struck him out on three pitches, too. Then, Matt Carpenter stepped into the box.
It was Carpenter who had homered off him in his last at-bat. And it was Carpenter who had put together the interminable at-bat that derailed Kershaw—and
the Dodgers’ season—in Game 6 of the 2013 NLCS. This was Kershaw’s shot at redemption.
Carpenter fouled off the first three pitches, which were Kershaw’s 103rd, 104th, and 105th offerings of the day. Dodger fans unstuck themselves from their sweaty seats and rose to cheer him on. Carpenter took pitch number 106 in the dirt, and watched number 107 sail high for ball two. He fouled off 108 and 109, a fastball then a slider. The Dodger Stadium crowd began to chant “MVP! MVP!” at Kershaw, in equal parts appreciation and encouragement. With the bases loaded, two out, the count 2-2, and nowhere to put Carpenter, Kershaw grooved a 95 mph fastball toward A. J. Ellis’s mitt. Carpenter hammered it. As the ball sailed through the air and toward the fence, the packed stadium became so quiet that it was possible to hear screams from the Cardinals’ bench. The ball didn’t clear the wall, but it may as well have. It clanked off the blue fence in the deepest part of center for a bases-clearing double. After all three Cardinals scored, St. Louis led 7–6.
This was not supposed to happen to Kershaw, not again. Not against the same team—the same batter!—as last year’s collapse. It was as if the thing he feared most was willed into being after it became a thought in his brain. And this fresh hell was playing out in front of fifty-five thousand people and millions more on television. Kershaw had been beaten when it mattered most the year before, and he had done everything within his power to make sure it would not happen again. He had failed. “Every time he wound up to make a pitch I was thinking, Okay, this is where it ends,” Ellis said about the Cardinals’ seventh-inning hit parade. But Kershaw couldn’t stop it. No matter how hard he worked or how closely he followed his routine to give himself some semblance of control, the devastating reality was he had very little.
The Dodgers mounted a rally, but lost the wild game 10–9.
It was such a shocking turn of events that afterward teammates and coaches struggled to find an explanation. It had to be the heat, right? Or maybe the Cardinals, who were known as some of the best sign stealers in the game, had seen the pitches Ellis called from second base and relayed that information to the hitter? Or maybe Kershaw was tipping what he was about to throw? “I know I’m going to stay up until three a.m. and second-guess every pitch I called,” Ellis said after the game. Kershaw stood in the hallway outside the Dodgers’ clubhouse to answer questions from a crowd of media looking for answers. He had none. “It’s a terrible feeling,” he said. “As a starting pitcher, it’s your game to lose. I did that.”
The Dodgers tried to rebound the next day by sending Greinke to the mound for Game 2. Greinke was terrific, allowing no runs on just two hits over seven innings. The Dodgers took a 2–0 lead into the eighth and needed just three outs to get the ball to Jansen. Since Greinke was at 103 pitches and would be facing the Cardinals’ lineup a fourth time, Mattingly called on J. P. Howell. The lefty reliever gave up a single to Oscar Taveras and then a first-pitch home run to Matt Carpenter—who else—to tie the game. Brandon League relieved Howell and got the Dodgers out of the inning with the score still knotted at two, but Greinke’s brilliant effort was wasted. Matt Kemp led off the eighth for the Dodgers and turned on a slider, homering down the left-field line. The Dodgers won the game 3–2 to even the series at a game apiece. Then they boarded a flight back to St. Louis for Games 3 and 4.
After sitting out for three weeks to nurse his tender throwing shoulder, Hyun-Jin Ryu turned in a gutsy performance in Game 3, giving up one run over six innings. Mattingly was prepared to let Jansen get the final six outs of the game, but someone still had to pitch the seventh. With no better ideas and the game tied at one, he turned to Scott Elbert, a seldom-used reliever who had just been recalled three weeks earlier after missing two years to recover from multiple arm surgeries. Elbert gave up a double to Yadier Molina and a home run to second baseman Kolten Wong. The Dodgers couldn’t solve Cardinals starter John Lackey and lost the game 3–1.
Kershaw got another shot in Game 4. Pitching on three days’ rest, he struck out the side to begin the game, then cruised through the first six innings, allowing just one hit and no runs while striking out nine. He took a 2–0 lead into the seventh. Had the Dodgers’ bullpen been solvent, Mattingly probably would have ended Kershaw’s night after six innings, as he had done in Game 4 of the Division Series against the Braves the year before—the last time his young lefty pitched on short rest. But Mattingly didn’t have any arms. He could bring Jansen in for the eighth and ninth, but he still needed those three outs in the seventh. So Kershaw went out to pitch the same inning that had caused him so much trouble in Game 1 and gave up a single to Matt Holliday, just as he had four days earlier. Then he gave up a single to Jhonny Peralta, following the script. The Cardinals’ big first baseman, Matt Adams, stepped into the batter’s box next. The left-handed Adams had hit .190 against southpaws during the regular season, with a .298 slugging percentage. Kershaw had not given up an RBI to a lefty in 2014 until the month of September. Those numbers didn’t matter. Ahead in the count 0-1, Kershaw hung a breaking ball to Adams, who hit it into the Cardinals’ bullpen. St. Louis took a 3–2 lead, which became final two innings later. The Cardinals advanced to the NLCS to face the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers went home.
10
THE BEST FRONT OFFICE MONEY CAN BUY
The Guggenheim group had spent more than $250 million on all the players who graced the Dodgers’ roster in 2014. It bought them one playoff win.
On the flight home from St. Louis, Ned Colletti was angry. He knew the press was roasting him over the Dodgers’ failure to add relievers at the trading deadline when it was already obvious the club’s bullpen was a disaster. He wanted people to know it wasn’t his fault. Colletti had come so close to trading for Padres reliever Joaquin Benoit back in July that San Diego’s front office thought it had a deal. A veteran in his thirteenth season, Benoit had staggered through his first eight years with Texas, bouncing between being a starter and a reliever and posting a 4.79 earned run average. Then, in 2009 he blew out his throwing shoulder and had to have surgery to fix a torn rotator cuff. He sat out a year to recover from the injury. Many thought his career was finished.
But the small-market Tampa Bay Rays liked what they saw in Benoit. Because their limited finances prevented them from paying a premium for established stars, their shrewd front office began stockpiling broken relievers with excellent changeups, figuring their pitching coaches could help the player sharpen it and turn it into a devastating weapon. With no better offers, Benoit accepted Tampa’s invitation to minor-league camp in 2010. The Rays called him up to the big leagues at the end of April and he dominated the rest of the way, striking out 75 batters in 60 innings with a 1.34 ERA. Benoit’s success was bittersweet for Tampa. They had taught him that throwing more strikes early in the count would make his changeup even harder to hit when batters fell behind, and he had flourished. And because they had helped him so much, they could no longer afford him. Detroit signed Benoit to a three-year deal worth $16.5 million before the 2011 season. He pitched very well for the Tigers, too, striking out ten batters per nine over 199 innings with a 2.89 ERA. In his final season in Detroit, he was promoted to closer.
Benoit had been one of the best relievers on the market before the 2014 season when the Padres signed him to a two-year deal worth a guaranteed $15.5 million to pitch the eighth inning ahead of their closer, Huston Street. As a guy who had proven he had the psychological mettle to handle the ninth inning, Benoit remained on Colletti’s radar. And when the Chris Perez and Brian Wilson signings blew up in his face and he knew the Dodgers’ bullpen would be a liability in October, he tried to deal for Benoit at the trading deadline.
But the Dodgers’ analytics department thought it was a bad idea. The thirty-seven-year-old Benoit’s shoulder was on the verge of exploding, they argued: it was just a matter of time. And Colletti had gotten the Dodgers’ bullpen into this mess by overpaying for former closers. If Benoit did get injured, Los Angeles would still be on the hook for over $1
0 million, plus whatever prospects they gave San Diego to get him. Had they learned nothing from recent history? Colletti disagreed with their assessment of Benoit, perhaps because he knew he would be blamed for failing to trade for reinforcements who could shore up the bullpen. Stan Kasten may have been in the game for a long time, but he had shown a willingness to listen to the opinions of the new-school stat-heads and embraced the idea that there was no such thing as too much information. Kasten sided with the geeks. The deal was nixed. Padre officials were left with the impression that Colletti couldn’t pull the trigger because he didn’t have room in a bullpen already crowded with veteran relievers he couldn’t cut. So the embattled Dodgers GM made no moves at the deadline and told reporters that he felt good about his club. The Dodgers’ analytics department was proven right immediately: Benoit reported shoulder soreness two weeks after Colletti had tried to trade for him. He pitched just five innings in the last seven weeks of the season.
That didn’t stop Colletti from laying into one of the employees who he believed blocked the trade, on the flight back to Los Angeles from St. Louis. “Thanks for having my fucking back on Benoit,” he was overheard saying to the man. The nerds had been right about Benoit and had saved the Dodgers millions of dollars and prospects. But in that moment it didn’t matter much to Colletti. Had he traded for Benoit and watched the righty’s arm fall off as a Dodger, at least he could say he had done something to try to help the bullpen and could blame the failure on the club’s bad injury luck.
