Wow, what a week in sports. USC defeats Michigan, a Dodger pitches a complete game for the first time in the postseason since 2004 and they sweep the Brewers to go to the World Series for the second consecutive year after being 0-6 against Milwaukee during the regular season. Perhaps Michael Conforto will be added to the roster and win MVP in the World Series.
Jeff Hershow Woodland Hills
While basically sleepwalking through the first three games of the NLCS, Shohei Ohtani saves his best for last. He goes “Hollywood” and produces the single greatest performance in MLB history as the final curtain comes down on the Milwaukee Brewers and extends the Dodgers’ magical journey to repeat as World Series champions.
Stay tuned for the sequel!
Rick Solomon Lake Balboa
It’s a bird, it’s a plane … no, it’s superhuman Shohei! He pitches a shutout, strikes out 10, and hits three tape-measure home runs. Wow!
Marty Zweben Palos Verdes Estates
In the history of Major League Baseball, has there ever been a player like Shohei Ohtani? I don’t think so. Shohei is the best ever. Enough said.
Chris Sorce Fountain Valley
Now that the Dodgers have effortlessly powered their way back into the World Series, it’s quite obvious that $400 million actually does buy what it used to!
Jack Wolf Westwood
At last, the second coming of the Dodgers has happened. We’ve been waiting for it and hoping for it, and now it’s here. Great offense, great defense and superb pitching. Our new chant should be “all the way L.A., all the way.”
Cheryl Creek Anaheim
Statistically speaking, there is a case to be made in comparing the postseason accomplishments of Sandy Koufax and Blake Snell. From a historical perspective, there is no comparison.
Koufax is a legendary lifetime Dodger who pitched until he physically was no longer able to do so. Snell famously refused to take the ball in his last Giants start to save himself for a free agency money windfall.
Bill Waxman Simi Valley
Stop the presses! The world is still spinning on its axis! Holy Toledo, Dave Roberts finally figured out a starting pitcher’s arm doesn’t fall off after 100 pitches. Too bad he didn’t come to that revelation during Blake Snell’s Game 1 performance, but better late than never as the saying goes.
A woman will umpire a major league game for the first time Saturday when Jen Pawol works the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and visiting Miami Marlins at Truist Park.
For Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, that announcement Wednesday brought one response: It’s about time.
“That’s great. I’ll be watching,” he said of Pawol, who will work behind the plate Sunday. “It’s good for the game. It’s fantastic.”
The NHL is the only major U.S. professional sport that hasn’t used female officials. The NBA was the first league to break the gender barrier, with Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner calling games in 1997. MLS followed a year later with Sandra Hunter and Nancy Lay-McCormick refereeing separate games on the same day.
The NFL’s first woman official was line judge Shannon Eastin, who made her debut in 2012.
Pawol, 48, was an all-state soccer and softball player in high school in New Jersey. She went on to play Division I softball at Hofstra, then played for the women’s national baseball team. She began umpiring NCAA softball games in 2010 and five years later enrolled in the minor league umpire training academy in Vero Beach, Fla., the first step toward a career in professional baseball.
That earned her a job in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. By 2023, she had worked her way up to triple A, the highest rung on the minor league ladder. Last year she became the third woman, after Pam Postema, in 1988, and Ria Cortesio, in 2007, to umpire major league spring training games.
The careers of both women were later blocked by senior male umpires who, according to colleagues, colluded against them. Postema later filed a federal discrimination suit against the National and American leagues, triple A clubs and the office of umpire development, claiming sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The suit was settled out of court.
Pawol, conversely, said she has received nothing but support, saying the coaches and players have gone out of their way to acknowledge her example as a trailblazer for their daughters.
On Wednesday, Roberts added his name to that list.
“Congratulations to her,” he said. “Baseball has done a great job of being completely inclusive. “
When Clayton Kershaw made his major league debut as a gangly 20-year-old with a devastating curveball, he was considered a one-in-a-million talent.
On Wednesday he entered a much smaller club, becoming the 20th pitcher in history to strike out 3,000 batters. The milestone came in the sixth inning on his 100th pitch of the night, a 1-and-2 slider the Chicago White Sox’s Vinny Capra took for a called strike.
Kershaw then walked off the mound alone with his thoughts before being mobbed by his teammates on the warning track in front of the dugout. The Dodgers marked the moment with a video of his considerable career highlights on the video boards above the outfield pavilions.
An hour later the Dodgers had even more to celebrate when Freddie Freeman’s two-out RBI single capped a three-run ninth-inning rally in a walk-off 5-4 win.
“It’s the last box for Clayton to check in his tremendous career,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who doubted many more pitchers will ever join the 3K club.
“You’ve got to stay healthy, you’ve got to be good early in your career, you’ve got to be good for a long time,” he said. “I’m a fan first and I’ve kind of appreciated longevity and moments like that, as opposed to one moment in time. The consistency is something that should be valued.”
Roberts said before the game he would manage differently as Kershaw approached the milestone and he did, allowing him to start the sixth inning despite having made 92 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a game in more than two years.
He would need just eight more. Capra was the 27th batter Kershaw faced and the 15th he took to a two-strike count.
“It’s a little bit harder when you’re actually trying to strike people out,” Kershaw said. “I never really did that before.”
But he could sense the sellout crowd of 53,536 pulling for him every time he got close.
“They wanted it for me so bad,” he said. “And strikeouts tonight, I didn’t really do my part. But you could feel the tension and the fans. They were trying to will me to do it.”
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The Dodgers entered the ninth trailing 4-2 but loaded the bases with no outs on a single by Michael Conforto and walks to Tommy Edman and Hyeseong Kim.
Shohei Ohtani drove in one run on a ground ball to second, hustling up the line to avoid the double play. Mookie Betts followed with a sacrifice fly to the warning track in left-center to score Edman with the tying run.
Ohtani then stole second, scoring two batters later on Freeman’s single to right.
That kept Kershaw, who gave up a season-high nine hits, from taking his first loss of the season. But the Dodgers may have suffered an even bigger loss on the first pitch of the Capra at-bat when Chicago’s Michael Taylor slid hard into Max Muncy on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third.
Muncy, who hit a team-high .333 in June, writhed on the ground before being helped off the field, favoring his left knee. His condition was not immediately known.
Roberts said Muncy will undergo an MRI exam on Thursday but added “that we feel optimistic and our hope is that it’s a sprain.”
Taylor also left the game with a left shoulder bruise.
Nearly three hours earlier Kershaw had been greeted by a loud ovation when he stepped onto the field to stretch about 40 minutes before game time. But the loudest roar — aside the one for the record strikeout — came when Kershaw bounded out of the dugout to start the sixth.
“The energy in the crowd definitely palpable,” he said. “That ovation was something that I’ll never forget, for sure. And then the toast after the game with everybody. I’ll remember those things.”
The White Sox, meanwhile, wanted no part of the party. They forced Kershaw to labor through a 29-pitch first inning in which he faced six hitters, giving up a run and three hits. And it could have been worse, with a leaping Conforto robbing Lenyn Sosa of a three-run home run at the bullpen gate in left field for the final out.
Strikeout No. 3,000!
Clayton Kershaw becomes the 20th pitcher in Major League Baseball history to record 3,000 career strikeouts. pic.twitter.com/mD7tM1POJC
Will Smith, announced as an All-Star starter along with Freeman and Ohtani earlier in the day, got that run back with two out in the bottom of the first, lining a full-count pitch into the left-field bleachers. White Sox opener Brandon Eisert did not return for the second inning and Andy Pages greeted his replacement rudely, driving Sean Burke’s first pitch over the wall in center for his 17th homer.
The Dodgers’ lead was short-lived, however, with Chase Meidroth opening the Chicago third with a single, then trotting home on Austin Slater’s two-run homer. Chicago added another run later in the inning on a one-out double from Andrew Benintendi and an RBI single from Edgar Quero.
Kershaw and the Dodgers, however, endured and at the end of the night the team had a win and the pitcher had joined an exclusive club.
“It’s an incredible list,” Kershaw said. “I’m super, super grateful to be a part of it.”
Etc.
Before Wednesday’s game, pitchers Blake Snell and Blake Treinen threw to hitters for the first time since going on the injured list in April. Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, went on the injured list because of shoulder inflammation April 6 while Treinen has been sidelined because of forearm tightness since April 19. “They’ll go again in a couple days,” Roberts said. “But both guys looked really good.” Right-hander Tyler Glasnow, also out since April because of shoulder inflammation, is scheduled to make his third minor league rehab start for Oklahoma City on Thursday.
Staff writer Ira Gorawara contributed to this report.
