Flaherty Twirls A Gem: Dodgers Grab Game 1 of the NLCS

LOS ANGELES — There was a glint in the eye of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. Asked in the pregame press conference if his Game 1 starter, Jack Flaherty, would be making any adjustments after an unsteady start against the Padres in the NLDS, Roberts vamped for a bit before a grin broke across his face.

“I just feel he’s built for moments like this,” Roberts said. “I think the pulse, the stuff. I really feel a good one out of Jack tonight.”

Whether it was a premonition, insider knowledge, or — in the style of his fellow Angelenos — belief in his power to manifest reality, Roberts got exactly what he expected. Flaherty carried the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday night, shutting out the Mets for seven innings en route to a casual 9-0 victory and an early series lead.

The right-hander, acquired from Detroit in a trade deadline deal, was in control all night. He allowed two walks and two singles but otherwise held the Mets at bay, striking out six and holding New York to an .233 expected batting average. It felt like the Mets couldn’t figure out whether to sit on Flaherty’s loopy knuckle curve or his firmer gyro slider. Stuck between these two distinct breaking balls, the Mets flailed around, swinging through his breakers, lifting them for harmless fly balls, or — on the rare occasions when they squared him up — sending them straight into the gloves of the Dodgers defense. To right-handed hitters, Flaherty threw a near-identical number of curves and sliders, making it difficult to key in on a specific pitch type.

The breaking ball assault allowed the fastball to play above its 92.6 mph average velocity. Because the Mets were so focused on these two breakers, Flaherty was able to use his four-seamer to grab 12 called strikes.

Perhaps most importantly, Flaherty let an exhausted Dodgers bullpen, who had logged 14 innings in Games 4 and 5 of the NLDS, get some much-needed rest. Daniel Hudson and Ben Casparius came in to close out the affair, extending the Dodgers’ scoreless streak to 33 innings and allowing the rest of the relief corps to rest their weary elbows.

The Mets couldn’t say the same. Already, they were not expecting much length from their Game 1 starter, Kodai Senga, who dealt with a shoulder and then a calf injury this year, and only recently returned from the injured list. Expected to deliver roughly three innings and 45 pitches, Senga got about halfway there, recording just four outs before Mets manager Carlos Mendoza removed him from the game.

From the get-go, it was clear that Senga was far from sharp. His velocity was down two ticks over his season average, and his command was a mess from the first hitter he faced. He left a 93-mph fastball in the middle of the plate to Shohei Ohtani, who mercifully chopped it to Jose Iglesias, and then proceeded to walk the next three hitters.

Many of Senga’s misses were uncompetitive, spraying fastballs and spiking his forkball. Even from the auxiliary press box above left field, it was obvious that Senga’s command was lacking. The three consecutive walks prompted a team huddle; with just one out in the first, the Mets relievers could be seen bouncing around and windmilling their arms in preparation for yet another long night.

After Will Smith got under a first-pitch cutter, not quite deep enough for Mookie Betts to score from third (though he arguably ought to have tried), Max Muncy lifted a middle-middle cutter into center field to plate two, including Freddie Freeman, who somehow scored from second despite a pronounced hobble due to his severely sprained ankle. (I saw Freeman limping around on the field pregame with a grim expression.)

After spiking a slider, sending runners to second and third on yet another bad miss, Senga induced a comebacker from Enrique Hernández to escape a truly crooked inning.

Meanwhile, Flaherty was intent on working ahead. He threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of the 24 Mets hitters he faced, setting up the breaking ball bonanza that followed. In the second, he mixed in a heavy dose of knuckle curves. He punched out Pete Alonso on a slider below the knees and froze Starling Marte on a low fastball in a full count. After a harmless Jesse Winker groundball to second base, Flaherty had retired the first six hitters without breaking much of a sweat.

Senga tried to reverse the tide in the second by trying something funky: a 66.9-mph first pitch curveball to Gavin Lux. That pitch bounced as well, and four pitches later, Senga had recorded his fourth walk in the first eight hitters. After a Tommy Edman bunt moved Lux to second, Ohtani smacked a hard chopper through the hole between first and second, bringing Lux home and ending Senga’s day after throwing just 30 pitches.

Flaherty remained perfect through the third, staying on the front foot and mixing all three of his pitches to keep the bottom of the lineup off-balance. His velocity was down near his September levels — through three innings, his four-seamer averaged just 92.8 mph — but it didn’t matter with the way he was commanding his slow stuff. He threw his two distinctly shaped breaking balls in the zone for strikes and just outside the zone for chase, finishing off an eight-pitch duel with Francisco Alvarez on a picture-perfect slider.

Reed Garrett, who came in for Senga, stabilized things for the Mets. In the bottom of the third, after allowing a single to Freeman, he leveraged his frankly disgusting arsenal to strike out Teoscar Hernández and Smith. Splitters, sweepers, front-door cutters, 98-mph sinkers burrowing in on the hands — the Mets’ use of Garrett early on and David Peterson after (he relieved Garrett with two outs in the third inning) suggested they were not going to lie down, even with the Dodgers’ early edge. Much was riding on this Game 1, and Mendoza wasn’t yet willing to let the low-leverage guys absorb these innings. Rather than pull Peterson at 20 pitches and perhaps preserve him for the second game of the series, Mendoza stuck with his lefty for 40 pitches, likely knocking him out until the series returns to New York for Game 3 at the very earliest.

Flaherty allowed his first baserunner on his second time through the order, walking Lindor on four fastballs that all missed arm side and topped out at 91.8 mph. Facing a bit of pressure for the first time in this game, he rebounded nicely, working through the heart of the Mets order by freezing Mark Vientos on an inside heater for a backwards K and generating a popup on a backdoor slider to Brandon Nimmo.

After Flaherty pitched around Alonso for his second walk of the fourth inning, the Mets nearly had their breakthrough. Marte drove a fly ball to the right field warning track at 100 mph and a 28 degree launch angle; it sent Betts on a mad scramble to track it down, but he was able to secure the out.

At this point, Flaherty was through four innings at 65 pitches. In a tightly managed game, he’d maybe have an inning left before the Dodgers’ high-leverage arms entered to save him an encounter with the dreaded third time through the order. But the calculations changed after an explosive bottom of the fourth. Enrique Hernández started things off, poking a 1-2 changeup off the plate into right field to lead off the inning. After a Lux bunt pushed Hernández to second, Edman drove home the fourth run of the game on an opposite-field single. Ohtani followed that up with a trademark screamer — at 116.5 mph, it was almost hit too hard, allowing Marte to sling it into Lindor while Edman was still rounding third. Even with Edman’s speed, the play at the plate was close, but Lindor short-armed the throw.

Freeman finished off the fourth-inning scoring with another single, bringing home Ohtani and sending the game squarely into blowout territory.

As Flaherty took the mound in the fifth, FanGraphs pegged the Dodgers’ win probability at 96.7%. It must have been tempting, at this point, for Roberts to see how much juice he could extract from Flaherty. His bullpen, after all, was pretty toasted, given the bullpen game in Game 4 of the NLDS and the five relievers who appeared in Game 5.

But Flaherty didn’t exactly look like his early-game self. His velocity remained down — his four-seamer was more like 90 or 91 mph instead of the 93 and 94 in the first two innings — and the hitters adjusted accordingly. He allowed hits to the first two hitters of the inning, but got bailed out by Winker rounding second base a little too loosely, allowing Lux to easily throw him out at third.

The next two hitters elevated the ball with authority: Tyrone Taylor lifted it to the right field warning track, and Alvarez mashed a liner to center, but both balls found gloves.

Perhaps emboldened by the six-run lead, Roberts sent Flaherty out to take on the top of the Mets order for the third time in the top of the sixth inning. Seeing the finish line on his start, Flaherty upped the velo, punching out Lindor on a 93-mph fastball above the zone and retiring Vientos and Nimmo on pop flies.

As the Dodgers headed to the plate in the bottom of the sixth, Mendoza appeared to be waving the white flag. Danny Young, who is at or near the bottom of the Mets bullpen hierarchy, took the mound to take on Ohtani and the rest of the Dodgers’ heavy hitters. Ohtani nearly took him deep, driving Taylor to the base of the center field wall, but Young escaped unscathed. He ended up soaking up four outs; José Buttó grabbed the final five.

Feeling his good fortune and perhaps even himself, Roberts rolled Flaherty out there for the seventh inning at 86 pitches. Flaherty dodged some damage — Kevin Kiermaier reeled in a Marte fly ball against the wall — and ultimately brought the Dodgers one step closer to a World Series. In the eighth, Betts put the game away for good, ripping a bases-clearing line drive down the left field line to score three more.

The impact of Flaherty’s seven innings go beyond this single win. For the first time this postseason, a Dodgers starter went longer than 5.1 innings. Prior to Game 1, Roberts suggested that the Dodgers’ pitching plan for Game 2 hinged on the number of outs that Flaherty could deliver. In the postgame press, Roberts revealed the plan: Monday would be a bullpen game.

“We came out of it with a lot of guys that are rested and rearing to go,” Roberts said. “I felt good about that. Jack being able to do that opens up a lot of things.”

It was as if he’d written the script himself.