PHILADELPHIA — Just four batters into the bottom of the first inning here last night, it was already crystal — and if you’re wearing Dodger blue, painfully — clear.
Manager Joe Torre’s crew will be lottery lucky to take this NLCS back to Los Angeles, much less all the way to a Game 7.
Though it can be tempting to read too much into one game, particularly one as lopsided as the Phillies’ 11-0 rout that was the Dodgers’ most lopsided playoff defeat in 50 years, that isn’t the case here.
Watching all 230 pounds of Ryan Howard sliding noggin’-first into third base for a two-run triple off poor Hiroki Kuroda wasn’t what clinched this bit of crystal-ball wisdom.
What sealed it was the Dodgers’ reaction. Not only did right fielder Andre Ethier inexplicably waltz to the ball in the corner like this was spring training, but the air went completely out of his teammates.
You practically could see it. It wasn’t hard to understand why either. Even a one-run deficit against Cliff Lee was going to be too much for L.A. to overcome, much less the 6-0 hole it quickly ballooned into less than one inning later with the help of Jayson Werth’s two-run homer.
“We got whooped up on pretty good,” Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp said.
Granted, last night’s laugher only gives the Phillies a 2-1 series lead, and the imminently beatable Joe Blanton goes for Philadelphia tonight in Game 4. And, yes, the resilient Dodgers are among the best road teams in baseball. But let’s get real here — after last night’s mugging, the Dodgers look every bit as cooked as their red-clad Anaheim counterparts.
It wasn’t as if Torre’s sometimes-inexplicable pitching decisions could be blamed for this embarrassing L.A. no-show. Not only was Kuroda a career 2-0 with a 1.46 ERA in two career playoff starts, but the Japanese right-hander came in 2-0 with a 1.44 ERA in four starts all time against the Phils.
Instead, Kuroda lasted just 38 pitches and 1 1/3 innings, and the Phillies had hit for the cycle by their eighth hitter.
Ghastly.
But Kuroda wasn’t the only one. The Dodgers looked defeated virtually by the time they took batting practice in the 47-degree temperatures — almost 50 degrees colder than it was Friday for Game 2 at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers didn’t kick the ball around like their warm-weather counterpart Angels did at Yankee Stadium over the weekend, but they looked just as beaten down by the cold as the Halos.
No life, no nothing. While Lee was dealing, allowing just three hits in eight innings, the Dodgers usually could be found bundled up deep in their dugout, the flames from a large space heater near the entrance plainly visible.
“They outhit us, outpitched us, outplayed us,” Kemp said. “It’s one of those games you have to . . . I’m not going to say laugh, but pretty close to it.”
And it’s not just the weather that seems to have gotten into the Dodgers’ heads. The Phils own them psychologically, with last night’s win marking their seventh in nine NLCS meetings the past two years.
Or maybe it’s just the knowledge that Lee — he of the 2-0 record and 0.74 ERA this postseason — would start Game 6 in L.A. if this series gets that far.
Which it probably will not.
Sorry, Southern California, forget about those Freeway Series dreams. This Fall Classic has “I-95” written all over it.