Dodgers fail to 'cash in' at plate, now look to 'flip script' in NLDS - ESPN

LOS ANGELES — It was all too familiar, both because of the reputation of this era's Los Angeles Dodgers and the way this year's National League Division Series has played out.

For a second straight game, the Dodgers, a 100-win team that surged through most of the summer, saw their starting pitcher fall flat and their offense waste what little opportunities they had to make up for it. They lost once again to a young, scrappy Arizona Diamondbacks team that compiled 16 fewer regular-season victories, this time by a 4-2 score — and now they're in danger of another early elimination by a division rival they typically dominate.

«Nobody dreamed of this,» Mookie Betts said Monday, his team down 0-2 in this best-of-five series. «But you got to play the cards that you're dealt.»

The Dodgers' hand consisted of a severely shorthanded starting rotation heading into this postseason, a deficiency that has cost them in ways they never imagined.

Sixteen-year veteran Clayton Kershaw allowed six runs and recorded only one out to begin Saturday's game, and 24-year-old rookie Bobby Miller allowed three runs before getting pulled in the second inning two nights later, throwing only 28 of his 52 pitches for strikes. The Dodgers' bullpen kept the game reasonably close, but their high-powered offense once again struggled against an opposing starter they previously had their way against.

Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, Arizona's two best starting pitchers by a wide margin, combined for a 5.93 ERA in six starts against the Dodgers during the regular season.

In the first two games of this series, they limited them to two runs in 11⅔ innings.

«We had some opportunities that we didn't cash in on,» Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said, «and that's on