LA's bats get good looks at 'leverage' arms

Pete Fairbanks, the 6-foot-6 Rays right-hander with big eyes and a bigger fastball, was as good as advertised in his first inning of work in the World Series. Fairbanks took the mound during the seventh-inning stretch of Game 2 on Wednesday and dispatched three Dodgers hitters in approximately the same time it took to sing Take Me Out To The Ball Game, throwing only six pitches -- five of them fastballs topping out at 100.3 mph on Chris Taylor’s swinging strike three.

When Fairbanks went back to the mound in the eighth, the forces of pressure changed. The Dodgers made it a two-run game with Corey Seager’s home run and gave themselves three shots with the potential tying run at the plate after Justin Turner doubled.

Game	Date	Result	Highlights
Gm 1	Oct. 20	LAD 8, TB 3	Watch
Gm 2	Oct. 21	TB 6, LAD 4	Watch
Gm 3	Oct. 23	LAD 6, TB 2	Watch
Gm 4	Oct. 24	TB 8, LAD 7	Watch
Gm 5	Oct. 25	LAD 4, TB 2	Watch
Gm 6	Oct. 27	LAD 3, TB 1	Watch

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Ultimately, Turner never advanced and the Dodgers lost, 6-4, but not before knocking a couple of dents in Tampa Bay’s tough bullpen. If one of the critical matchups in this Fall Classic is L.A.’s deep crop of hitters against the Rays’ relief corps, then the looks that Dodgers hitters got Wednesday could prove valuable when the Series resumes on Friday night.

“It's great just to kind of put eyes on guys that we hadn't seen before,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We talked about it, once you see guys once, twice, you just keep getting that familiarity, so that's just going to only benefit us going forward.

“That's just a credit for our offense continuing to fight and claw to kind of make sure those ‘leverage’ guys got in the game tonight.”

For much of the night, it looked as if the Dodgers might not get a look at the Rays’ top relievers in a second straight lopsided game. After winning Game 1, 8-3, the Dodgers entered the bottom of the fifth inning of Game 2 in a 5-0 deficit, with no hits against Blake Snell.

With a day off coming Thursday, would Rays manager Kevin Cash have used his “A” list relievers with that kind of score? Probably, but there could have been a temptation to try to deny the Dodgers any looks at the likes of right-hander Nick Anderson (Tampa Bay’s most valuable and versatile reliever during the regular season) or Fairbanks (their hardest thrower) or Diego Castillo (the closer with movement on his sinker-slider combination made for social-media shares) or even veteran left-hander Aaron Loup, a weapon against the Dodgers’ best left-handed hitters like Seager and Cody Bellinger.

Anyway, the Dodgers denied Cash and the Rays the luxury of such decisions by making it a higher-leverage kind of game. With two outs in the fifth and Kiké Hernández aboard, Taylor hit a misplaced curveball for a two-run homer that made it a 5-2 game and a situation for the Rays’ top relievers.

After the Rays tacked on a run in the sixth, Dodgers catcher Will Smith struck back with a solo home run off Anderson, whose puzzling performance thus far in October is providing an opening for opponents. During the regular season, Anderson posted a 0.55 ERA in 19 appearances. Right-handed hitters like Smith were 1-for-29 against him, including 0-for-19 in at-bats that ended with Anderson’s four-seam fastball. He allowed one home run in 16 1/3 innings.

In the postseason, Anderson has surrendered seven earned runs in 13 innings, with much of that damage coming recently. Anderson has been charged with a run in five consecutive outings, allowing a home run in three of them.

Looking forward in the World Series, Dodgers hitters will aim to extend that streak.

“We’ve seen the guy, he’s been as good as any reliever in baseball from the day that we acquired him,” Cash said. “And when the game’s on the line and he’s available, we’re going to go to him.”

When Anderson’s four-out outing was complete, the Rays turned to Fairbanks, whose reverse splits make him a particularly important arm against the Dodgers’ stable of left-handed hitters.

Which made Seager’s home run -- his seventh of this postseason, an all-time record for a shortstop, and one off the record for any player in a single postseason -- all the more impressive. Seager hit a hanging slider a Statcast-projected 425 feet to center field to make it a 6-4 game in the eighth.

Turner followed with a bloop double that got past both Rays outfielders in right-center, and could have spelled trouble for the Rays had Turner been a faster baserunner.

The Dodgers needed one or two more big hits, but they came up empty. Fairbanks retired Max Muncy on a flyout that didn’t advance the runner, then caught a break when Smith scorched a 102.6 mph liner right at the head of third baseman Joey Wendle, who was able to make a defensive catch.

“In the [eighth] inning, they got him,” Cash said. “Seager got a pitch, he’s been on fire throughout the postseason, but [Fairbanks] gets soft contact on Turner, stays at it and gets two more big outs.”

Loup then entered the game to strike out Bellinger looking, and the Dodgers’ final threat was over. Loup and Castillo combined for an uneventful ninth inning.

Will those looks help Dodgers hitters if they find themselves in another tight game with Rays relievers? To be continued.

“We knew what we were facing,” said Taylor, who struck out against Fairbanks in the seventh and against Castillo in the ninth to end the game -- the only batter Castillo faced. “They’ve got really good stuff and they’ve been good all year. We knew it was going to be a challenge for us and we just have to keep battling with them.”