Battle-tested Dodgers one step closer

[Dodgers, from B10]

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BLAKE SNELL turned in a nine-strikeout performance to match Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo.

(ROBERT GAUTHIER Los Angeles Times)

season that qualified as a disappointment. But when their best has been required this month — including in front of 45,653 crazed Phillies fans on Monday — they've been able to deliver.

“We were just sitting at our locker as Iwas getting dressed, and Kiké [Hernandez] said, ‘We just took two here,’” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “To get two in this environment is obviously massive. You can’t understate it. This isa really hard place to play.”

The biggest play came at the end of the game, when what had been a 4-0 Dodgers lead was on the verge of implosion.

After six scoreless, one-hit, nine-strikeout innings from Blake Snell, and two innings of one-run relief from converted starter Emmet Sheehan, Blake Treinen had made a mess of his ninth-inning save opportunity, giving up two runs on a leadoff single and back-to-back doubles.

The score was suddenly 4-3. The Phillies had the tyingrunat second with no outs.

As lefty Alex Vesia came on to face Bryson Stott, however, the Dodgers’ infield gathered near the mound and came up witha plan.

Anticipating Stott would bunt, the fielders agreed that “we got to try something different here,” third baseman Max Muncy recounted. “We can’t just play standard.”

It was shortstop Mookie Betts, who has spent so much of this season perfecting his technique at his new defensive position, who insisted on the strategy: A good ol’ fashioned, so-called “wheel play,” in which the corner infielders charge the plate, and a middle infielder (in this case, Betts) sprints to the bag ahead of the runner on base to try to get the more important lead runner.