Rolling wheel takes them to win

Betts calls for bunt defensive play to cut down lead runner in the ninth

- BILL SHAIKIN COLUMNIST

PHILADELPHIA ven Dodgers fans steeped in the lore of Kirk Gibson might not remember the name of Mel Didier.

Didier was the scout who had issued this warning to the 1988 Dodgers: Ifyou’re facing Dennis Eckersley, the mighty closer for the Oak-Jand Athletics, and the count runs full, he’s going to throw a backdoor slider.

Eckersley threw it, Gibson hit it fora homerun, and the Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

Ifthese Dodgers go on to win the World Series, no one will struggle to remember the name of Mookie Betts, of course. On Monday, however, Betts pushed the Dodgers to within one win of the National League Championship Series — not with his bat and not with his glove, but with memory and aptitude to rival Didier.

“His mind is so far advanced,” Dodgers coach Dino Ebel said of Betts. “That was the ballgame right there.”

With the tyingrunat second base and none out in the ninth inning, he was the calm ina screamingmad-house. As the Dodgers infielders gathered at the mound and Alex Vesia entered from the bullpen, Betts thought back toa play he had participated in once, inan August game against the Angels. Miguel Rojas had taught him the so-called “wheel play.”

“Allhe had to do was tell me once,” Betts said. “To me, that was like a door-die situation. Them tying the game up turns all the momentum there. Ifwe can find away to stopit, that would be great.

“Ijust made a decision and rolled with it.”

On the mound, amid the bedlam, Betts put on the wheel play. It’s a bunt coverage: with arunner on second base, the third baseman and first baseman charge home, with the idea that one would field the bunt and throw out the runner at third.

Inany previous decade, the Dodgers would have practiced this playin spring training, repeatedly.