‘We’re Here’: D-backs Send Resounding Message With Rout of Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers

Image credit: Corbin Carroll rounds the bases after hitting a home run in the second inning against the Dodgers during Game 1 of the Division Series. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — The D-backs arrived early this season. They were the young team who rode a star rookie and aggressive, up-tempo style and snuck into the playoffs as the final team in the National League field. After losing 110 games two years ago, merely reaching the postseason counted as an unqualified success. This was simply the first step, with the best to come in future seasons.

But just as the D-backs accelerated their timeline to contention in the regular season, they’re doing the same in the postseason. With each passing game, the D-backs are establishing themselves as not just young upstarts, but as viable contenders not to be taken for granted.

After summarily dispatching the National League Central champion Brewers in the NL Wild Card Series, the D-backs marched into Chavez Ravine and hammered Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, 11-2, in Game 1 of the NL Division Series on Saturday night. The D-backs scored six runs in the first seven batters to chase Kershaw from the game and piled on from there, sending the Dodgers to their most lopsided postseason loss in Dodger Stadium history.

It was an announcement, loud and clear, that the D-backs are a force to be reckoned with, 84-78 record be damned.

“We’re here,” center fielder Alek Thomas said. “This is a different Diamondbacks team than in the past. We’re just gonna keep on playing our brand of baseball and try to get this thing done.”

The D-backs’ onslaught was swift and brutal. Ketel Marte led the game off with a 115.7 mph liner that James Outman couldn’t handle in center field, and Corbin Carroll followed with a 109.6 mph single up the middle to give the D-backs a 1-0 lead four pitches into the game. Tommy Pham followed with another hard single, Christian Walker ripped a double off the left-field wall and Gabriel Moreno followed with a monstrous home run 419 feet to the back of the left-field bleachers to make it 5-0 just five batters into the game.

Kershaw mercifully recorded his first out on a groundout after the homer, but he walked Thomas and served up an elevated 90 mph fastball that Evan Longoria drilled into the left-center gap for an RBI double. That made it 6-0 and ended Kershaw’s night less than 30 minutes after it began.

Every ball the D-backs put in play against Kershaw left the bat at 96.8 mph or higher. The future Hall of Famer, trying to pitch through a tender left shoulder that has sapped his velocity and durability, trudged slowly to the dugout, sat on the bench and dropped his head in despair.

Kershaw became the first pitcher in postseason history to give up five hits and five runs before recording an out. It was the first time in his 16-year career he failed to get out of the first inning.

“You feel like you let everybody down,” Kershaw said. “The guys, whole organization, that looked to you to pitch well in Game 1.

“It’s just embarrassing, really. I just feel like I let everybody down. It’s a tough way to start the postseason. Obviously we still have a chance at this thing, but that wasn’t the way it should’ve started for me.”

It wasn’t just Kershaw the D-backs hammered. Carroll, the BA Rookie of the Year, led off the second inning with a home run 421 feet up the right-field stands off Emmet Sheehan. Thomas finished a brilliant 14-pitch at-bat by blasting a solo shot 427 feet right-center off Michael Grove to lead off the seventh. Pham finished the scoring with a solo homer down the right-field line to lead off the eighth against Alex Vesia.

Carroll, Thomas and Moreno became just the second trio under the age of 23 to homer in the same postseason game. The other is Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler for the 2015 Cubs—the year before they won a World Series title.

“The togetherness that we’re playing with, you know, there’s no selfish at-bats.” Carroll said. “I think it’s just a collective mindset of everyone in the same space and it’s paying off in a cool way so far.”

In all, the D-backs have scored 22 runs in 27 innings this postseason. They’ve gotten the best of Kershaw, Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta and Devin Williams, among others. The Brewers pitching staff had the lowest ERA in the major leagues this season and couldn’t hold early leads two nights in a row against the D-backs. The Dodgers had allowed more than 10 runs only twice all season prior to the D-backs Game 1 onslaught.

It’s been a surprising, but timely, development for a team that ranked tied for 14th in the majors in runs scored and 17th in OPS, both second-lowest of any team who made the playoffs.

“We’re definitely clicking as an offense and definitely playing together it seems like,” Thomas said. “Like I said before, not one guy is going to do this and I think, you know, we’re really buying into that.”

Longoria, the D-backs’ elder statesman at 38 years old, couldn’t help but draw a comparison to another team from his earlier years. Longoria was 22 when the 2008 Rays shocked the world and ran all the way to the World Series. Sitting in the locker room with a beer in hand post-victory, Longoria noted the similarities and said he saw the same, special qualities in this year’s D-backs.

“Yeah, kind of,” Longoria said. “I mean, we have some really good young players. And I hope that it ends in the same way, except for us winning the trophy and not losing the World Series.”