Commentary: The excruciating conclusion of the Dodgers’ glorious season
It’s not quite a month since the Dodgers’ final spring training game. I thought it might be.
The team’s final spring training game at Camelback Ranch on March 27 was a little more like a game, anyway. As a rule, spring training does not involve the same level of intensity or play that occurs during a game. Yet every game, even the ones where the Dodgers lose, is a game. And the one before the team’s final spring training game on March 27? Well, I’ll let the final game and the final spring training game speak for themselves.
And they speak for two reasons. At first, the Dodgers lost to the Rockies 7-4 in the final spring training game in a game that seemed at a first blush to be like a normal game. The game’s most fascinating moment occurred when the Rockies threw first base coach Joe Mauer for a loop by throwing him out at the plate to first base for an error, then making him score on a groundout. Mauer was standing at first. He just didn’t have time to be anywhere else.
Then, just before the end of the game, the Rockies pulled Mauer back into the game. And they ran into him again, this time for a game-tying single. They scored on a wild pitch by Juan Uribe in the eighth, and then they ran out of time, as the Dodgers won, 7-6.
The final game was exciting. But it was also like watching a normal game. If that’s not the case on the final spring training game, then it must be like watching a normal game.
The end of spring training. That’s how it feels. You start to believe that spring training might not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
And then the final spring training game happened, and it was. The Dodgers won the game. 8-1. That’s a nice way of saying they won the game because they came back in the ninth.
Not exactly.
The Dodgers lost, 8-1. And in terms of how the game ended, the last game was a lot more dramatic than the game before that one.
