The World Series begins tonight, and if you were hoping to see the biggest stars and best players in the sport, well, hopefully you can settle for the B-Team. From Dave Roberts, yesterday:
“Joe (Kelly) is still throwing and ramping up, but…when we set the roster, I don’t think Joe’s a candidate right now.”
We hoped last night that Roberts was playing possum, that the Dodgers would release their World Series roster this morning and reveal Joe Kelly at the top of the list. But Roberts wasn’t kidding. Joe Kelly remains sidelined by the mysterious shoulder injury which popped back up the week of the Wild Card Series.
Is this sabotage? Is a foreign power trying to obstruct this World Series, knowing less viewership will crush advertisers and disable the U.S. economy? Does someone out there—Rob Manfred would fit the bill—just really, really hate baseball?
It’s encouraging that Kelly is throwing and ramping up. Perhaps God will look upon our nation with mercy and send his floods back upon the world, delaying the series long enough to give us Joe Kelly pitching the ninth inning of a deciding Game 7. For now, though, no need to watch. Go to bed early. Spend time with your family. Watch the shortening days and remember that, while it may feel like there’s nothing to live for, that’s entirely correct and thankfully the sun will eventually burn out.
A World Series without Joe Kelly? More like a Hurled Series out of my belly…or something like that. Something connoting vomit. Lots of vomit. Barf all over the place. That’s what I want to do right now. Hurl. And I’m not talking about an Irish sport.
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We wrote a couple weeks ago about “cheering for the series,” which is when you—with no real preference between the teams involved—look for the best outcome possible and cheer for that. An attempted script:
Game 1: Yankees 6, Dodgers 2
Jack Flaherty’s velocity is down, and after a few innings spent stranding runners on the bases, Dave Roberts finally comes out and gets him. Shohei Ohtani’s towering first-inning home run has given the Dodgers the lead, but in Joe Kelly’s absence, the Los Angeles bullpen can’t hold. Giancarlo Stanton at one point hits a baseball so hard that the enterprising reporter who tracks down the man who caught it reveals legitimate damage to the stitching.
Game 2: Yankees 8, Dodgers 3
More disaster for Los Angeles. In this one, with Joe Kelly earnestly picking him up in the dugout after each inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws seven scoreless innings, blowing past his previous post-injury high. In the eighth, though, after a rousing seventh inning stretch sung by Joe Kelly’s children and an insurance run courtesy of a Mookie Betts triple, Aaron Judge lines a fastball off somebody’s hand (we’re not going to specify whose—we’re not cheering for specific injuries over here). The Yankees rally, the defense falls apart, and Kike Hernández starts pacing around like he thinks he might have to pitch. The mood is grim in Los Angeles as California sends its Dodgers to the East Coast, not knowing if they’ll ever see those blue boys’ faces again.
Game 3: Dodgers 10, Yankees 9
A slugfest, but the Dodgers prevail. Seven separate home runs are hit which wouldn’t have been home runs anywhere but Yankee Stadium. It becomes a conversation. The next morning, the Dodgers make the call. They were holding off on adding a new pitcher to the roster, hoping Joe Kelly would be healthy enough, but he just isn’t there yet. Edgardo Henriquez gets the nod instead.
Game 4: Dodgers 23, Yankees 19
It’s a bloodbath of a bullpen game, but the Dodgers prevail again. Somehow, some way. The series is guaranteed to at least get back to Los Angeles. At this point, the rains come. We spend four days waiting for a break, but no break arrives. Meanwhile, Joe Kelly pitches and pitches some more. He throws. He builds up. The Lord’s healing angels work on that shoulder day and night. Finally, when the dove returns with an olive branch, we move on to Game 5.
Game 5: Yankees 11, Dodgers 2
Poor Jack Flaherty. He’s a dawg, but the man is too beat up. He’s given all he has. (We’re not cheering for an injury here. This is just what we think is going on.) Yamamoto unexpectedly comes out of the bullpen after Flaherty exists in the first, but Yamamoto gets hit hard. Anthony Rizzo has the World Series’ first ever four-homer game. After the game, someone asks if he should be called Mr. November, and he says no, that he prefers to go by Anthony.
Game 6: Dodgers 7, Yankees 4
Flaherty hurt, you say? Another spot on the roster? Ten whole additional days spent healing for our man Joe Kelly? On Monday, November 4th, the Dodgers do what we dreamed they’d do: They add Joe Kelly back to the postseason roster. He emerges in the eighth inning and works two scoreless to preserve the victory after heroic efforts by Walker Buehler, Ryan Brasier, Brusdar Graterol, Michael Kopech, Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Edgardo Henriquez, and whichever other pitchers didn’t take that line drive off the fingers in Game 2. Bottom line? The Dodgers’ bullpen is spent.
Game 7: Dodgers 1, Yankees 0 (27 innings)
What do the Dodgers do? They turn to an unlikely man. No, not Joe Kelly. No, not Shohei Ohtani. Kike Hernández finally gets his start on the mound. He does eventually turn it over to Ohtani, after six scoreless of his own, and Ohtani contributes another three scoreless frames. But with the game still knotted 0–0, Roberts hands the ball to the only pitcher he can trust.
I will admit: I don’t really know how the lose–your–DH rules work. I kind of think that in this scenario, though, where Shohei Ohtani pitches…the Dodgers would lose their DH? This is important, because after going 0-for-6 in his first six at-bats, I think Joe Kelly need to hit a walkoff inside-the-park home run to cap off eighteen perfect innings, innings highlighted by sightings of Fernando Valenzuela’s ghost on the mound beside him, breathing life into that tender shoulder again and again.
In this case, this is what “cheering for the series” entails. An unexpected write-in campaign landing Joe Kelly in the White House is also a noble goal, but that’s not part of the series. That’s cheering for America.
