Dodgers flatten overmatched Reds. But about that

This isn’t a collection, it’s calisthenics.

The Dodgers shouldn’t be right here battling baseball’s junior varsity, and they understand it, and they’re intent on pounding and pitching their method out of this embarrassing scenario as shortly as potential.

Wild-card spherical? The defending champions are no one’s wild card.

The Cincinnati Reds? Human byes.

October got here a day early to Chavez Ravine on Tuesday and the shouldn’t-be-here Dodgers welcomed it with their annoyance, tying a membership postseason document with 5 homers and dismantling the Reds 10-5 in the opener of a three-game wild-card collection that ought to be mercifully accomplished by midweek.

The Dodgers completed 10 video games forward of the Reds in the standings, and received 5 out of six during the common season, and only received lumped with the pretenders when their bullpen fell aside and they blew a likelihood at having the week off.

If the Dodgers had taken care of business they’d have completed with one of the 2 best data in the National League and would have drawn a first-round bye as they did the earlier three seasons. But, no, they completed behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia and so, even though they claimed the National League West title for the twelfth time in 13 years, they have been compelled into a three-games-at-home wild-card spherical.

Hello, Reds.

Goodbye, Reds.

The Dodgers will sweep this collection with a win in Game 2 on Wednesday, and contemplating they’re sending ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound, a victory appears possible. In any event, there’s no method the Reds are profitable two straight at rollicking Dodger Stadium, so e book your consideration to Philadelphia this weekend for the start of the five-game division collection against the Phillies.

The only method the Reds made it this far was because the New York Mets stumbled down the stretch and misplaced in Miami on the ultimate day of the season. And if Tuesday was any indication, there’s no method the Reds are getting out of right here alive.

The Dodgers knocked them backward on the sport’s fifth pitch with a scorching home run by Shohei Ohtani against Reds ace Hunter Greene, the second consecutive 12 months Ohtani has began the Dodgers postseason with a longball.

The Dodgers knocked them flat two innings later with 4 runs on homers by last season’s playoff heroes Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman.

The recreation was over within its first hour, and the Dodgers have been just getting began.

Hernández later added a second home run and, oh yeah, so did Ohtani, two of last season’s postseason stars who love the second.

“I think it’s the clutch gene,” said Dodger supervisor Dave Roberts. “I think they’re not afraid to fail. They like the spotlight. And it’s just a really good heartbeat for those guys in those big moments.”

And to assume, neither certified as the sport’s hero.

That title belonged to starter Blake Snell, who fooled the Reds into fast swings, wild swings, foolish swings, and just 4 hits with 9 strikeouts in seven innings. Perhaps just as important, he lasted 91 pitches, permitting Roberts to keep out of the dreaded bullpen as long as humanely potential.

“The deeper that the starters go in the game, one, it means we’re pitching good; but, two, it means you’re giving the bullpen a break and breather,” said Snell. “And they get to be 100% every time they come out. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.”

Of course, Roberts had to finally crack that left-field door, and catastrophe very almost occurred when three Dodger relievers accounted for 4 walks that led to three eighth-inning runs. But Jack Dreyer managed to get two outs with the bases loaded and Blake Treinen completed the sport by giving up just a bloop single in the ninth.

“If we don’t feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we’ve got to think through some things,” said a dismayed Roberts.

It seems, even the weakest half of this Dodger crew was enough to finally quiet the guests, who shouldn’t be right here an excessive amount of longer.

It’s virtually as if the Reds have been intimidated even before the sport started, as the Dodgers buried them in their thickest pregame brine.

Ice Cube was on the video board screaming that it’s time for Dodger baseball. Mariachi Joe Kelly was on the mound delighting the roaring crowd with a ceremonial first pitch that appropriately bounced. Keith Williams Jr. was bringing the chills with his normal falsetto-laden national anthem.

Jason Alexander was on the video board begging the followers to cheer louder… wait a minute. Jason Alexander? Didn’t his Seinfeld character work for the New York Yankees? What was he doing in the center of Dodgerland? No surprise the followers have been ignoring him.

Alexander’s look was one of the only errors on a evening that gave hope that the Dodgers’ late-season steam — they completed 9-2 and led the league in scoring in the ultimate weeks — might carry them far past this depressing little first-round dalliance.

“Momentum is real,” Roberts said, later including, “I think that whether it’s the Rangers find their way into the postseason to then win the World Series or some team finishing hot and remaining hot or in a particular game, I do believe in a postseason game, momentum is real.”

As normal at Chavez Ravine, that momentum constructed as the sport went along, uncommon empty seats in the stands but full-throated scream from the followers, yet another cause the Dodgers blew it by not getting home-field benefit in later rounds.

“I do love being at home because a lot of times that’s what perpetuates it, the home crowd, the energy,” said Roberts.

But, critically, about that bullpen…

Before the sport, Dodgers baseball boss Andrew Friedman bravely confronted the query of his bullpen, a mess that he created with poor winter signings and unwise midseason inactivity.

Not surprisingly, he defended his guys.

“They’ve had stretches of good, they’ve had some stretches where it’s been really tough and challenging,” he acknowledged. “At the end of the day, as we’re working through it the last couple of weeks, it’s not a talent issue.”

In other phrases, they’re competent relievers just going through a unhealthy, terrible, horrible, season-altering stretch?

“Relievers, kind of like placekickers, are tightrope walkers,” Friedman said. “It’s what they do for a living. They do well, people forget about them. They don’t do well and they’re in the ire of everything. So it’s tough.”

Friedman said it’s a matter of confidence, which is comprehensible when a group will get hammered all season like these guys.

“And when the confidence is wavering, the execution is off,” Friedman said. “When the execution is off, you get behind and you come in zone and you’re just more likely to take on damage. So it’s kind of that imperfect storm in a lot of ways.”

Storm is correct. What form of bullpen fools around with an eight-run lead, as the Dodgers reliever did Tuesday evening when threatening to spoil every little thing?

The bullpen survived, but for how long? This collection could soon be over, but Philadelphia awaits. This first step into October was an spectacular one. It will also be the best one.