Chapter 76

The Dodgers had no victory celebration planned. There was no champagne or loud music in the clubhouse. There were no commemorative hats or T-shirts. Jim LaCross had forbade such things, not that anything was in the works.

This was nothing less than the manager expected. In fact, it fell short of what he expected from his team – and what the team expected from itself. Winning a playoff round was just the first step to their ultimate goal – bringing the Commissioner's Trophy back to Los Angeles for the first time since before Brock Miller (or Jordan DeVoe, as it were) was born.

Danys Sanchez was the hero of the hour. Because the series had ended, the media was permitted into the locker room 15 minutes after the game. Brock took that time to hop in the shower and get dressed. He disappeared into the clubhouse where the normal postgame buffet was laid out.

For some of the guys, getting to the food first was more important than getting cleaned up. Zack was notorious for veering off for some grub before attending to any other task. He usually had to race John Milton or Broderick Williams for the honor of first plate of food.

Tonight's selection was Italian dishes. Brock looked down at his suit and decided Zack was probably right in this instance to eat before showering. He settled for a slice of pizza and a beer. The clubhouse attendant saw Brock's quandary and brought over a large towel which he draped over Brock's frame.

"Now you can eat what you want," he said with a laugh. Brock took him up on his offer and fixed a plate of shrimp fettuccini alfredo and a large hunk of garlic toast. Meredith probably would be unhappy at his choices but he figured she would get over it. He was still eating when Al came in from his media session.

"I should have known," the centerfielder joked.

"Nothing to see here, move along," Brock replied.

Al shook his head and marveled that Brock was already dressed and appeared ready to leave as soon as possible. Al had yet to shower, having spent the better part of half an hour with one reporter or another stationed near his locker.

"Do you plan to make a comment for publication?" Al asked.

Brock looked up from his food for only a moment.

"Nope," he replied before tucking back into his pasta dish.

"Well, I guess I'll get showered and we can head on around," Al replied, glancing at the food-laden table.

"I'll wait," Brock told him. "This is some seriously fine cuisine. Take your time, in fact. I can have my second helping while you're eating and my third while you're in the shower."

It was almost an hour later before Al and Brock made their way from the clubhouse to the waiting car.

Meredith was still awake when Brock got home and met him at the door with a kiss, as was usual. She pulled back and frowned at the mixture of garlic and beer on his breath.

"I figured you'd be making the rounds at all the L.A. hotspots tonight," she joked.

"I'm with the only hot thing I want to be with," Brock responded, pulling Meredith in for another kiss. She grudgingly complied.

"Flatterer," Meredith joked. "Jesus, I had to listen to half the people around me talking about how cute you were. It was sickening."

"Now you know how I feel," Brock replied with a smile. "I have to listen to the guys in the locker room telling me how great you are every day. It's only fair that once a year you have to get the same treatment."

"I'm already going to bed with you later," Meredith joked. "You don't need to butter me up. But you could brush your teeth and gargle first. What did you eat tonight?"

Brock gave Meredith a rundown of the menu.

"No doggy bag?" she asked. "That is so unfair. I got a damned hot dog. You should be ashamed."

"I am," Brock admitted with a smile. "Completely ashamed. I'll go to church in the morning and confess my gluttony."

Meredith shook her head.

"I was surprised at the people in the section tonight," Brock added. "It sort of sucks that the folks who sat there all year long got booted out to make room for people who don't know a curveball from a basketball."

"You're not kidding," Meredith remarked. "When Matt dropped down the bunt in the fourth I heard people asking why he didn't try to hit it harder. Of course that was when they weren't talking about which player has the cutest butt. I think I'm going to sit in the family section next game."

"I really didn't even think about how expensive playoff tickets were," Brock admitted. "I should have paid for Hailey and Karen but I just didn't think of it."

"I should have reminded you," Meredith said. "I thought about it when Randi and I bought ours. I didn't think of it again until they were sold out. We're going to figure out something for the next round. Randi has to be in New York again so they're using her seats at least one night. Randi dropped their tickets off yesterday."

"Good," Brock said.

"If they stick you in the afternoon again, we might be the only regulars you recognize," Meredith added. "Jen's in class. Tara, Mel and Susan have to work. Randi's gone. I used to think afternoon games were cool, but this sucks."

The Dodgers' travel staff had to play the waiting game for the National League Championship Series.

The Braves and Nationals began a day later than the Cardinals and Dodgers and were tied at one game each when they departed Washington, D.C., for Atlanta. Game 3 of the Dodgers series was finished on a travel day for the other series.

If the Braves won the series, the Dodgers would travel to Atlanta to open the NLCS. If Washington won, the Dodgers would host games to open and close the series – despite the fact that Washington had a better record during the regular season. A wild card team couldn't have home-field advantage before the World Series (and that was dependent upon its league winning the All-Star Game, not on seasonal records).

The Dodgers' players were happy to wait. It gave them a chance to take an extended break and to rest their pitching staff, first of all. Secondly, a long series meant it was less likely that they would have to face a superb pitcher until Game 3.

Both the Nationals and Braves had excellent front ends to their rotation. Each had two pitchers who would be, could be considered an ace. Washington had two young players, one 23 and the other 22. The Braves were at the other end of the spectrum. Their starters were in the middle 30s and had been stars for a decade or more.

Washington had to use one of its young starters in the Wild Card Showdown but the second outdueled Atlanta's top pitcher in Game 1 of their series. The Braves No. 2 shut down the Nationals in the second game to even the series.

With the travel day, Brock hoped the series would go five games and each team would shorten the rest of its pitchers. That meant that the aces would face off in the last two games of the series – and be unavailable for at least the start of the series with Los Angeles.

The Dodgers had no one who could match up with the top two pitchers on either staff. In fact, Udo would probably be the fourth starter in Atlanta or Washington – just as he would have been the third or fourth start in Los Angeles if Betancourt and Erik Teeter hadn't been hurt. Still, he matched up well against both teams' No. 3 starter. If the Braves-Nationals series went on long enough that Los Angeles would only face the respective pair of aces once, everyone would call it a win.

Brock and Meredith hung out with friends for most of the three games Washington played in Atlanta. The Rays had swept their series with Anaheim on the same afternoon the Dodgers had ousted the Cardinals. Cleveland finished off Texas the next afternoon, leaving the entire baseball world watching the last two games of the Atlanta-Washington showdown.

The Nationals battered Atlanta's No. 3 starter thoroughly in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series edge.

The Nationals manager brought his top pitcher back for Game 4 and Atlanta countered by starting its ace on three-day's rest.

It became evident in the sixth inning that Udo would be opposed by the second of Washington's young star pitchers. The first, barely two years out of college, held Atlanta without a hit until the fifth inning. The Braves starter was just as sharp until he tired. He left in the sixth trailing 3-0. The Dodgers were thankful that Braves kept the game close. If the Nationals had jumped out to a substantial lead, their manager might have pulled his ace after the second or third inning to make him available earlier in the Championship Series.

The kid went seven innings and threw more than 100 pitches, so the Dodgers knew it would be well into the series before he made an appearance. After their two studs, the Nationals pitching staff was decidedly average.

The teams would play Sunday and Monday in Los Angeles; Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Washington; and back to Los Angeles for Saturday and Sunday games, if necessary. The series between Cleveland and Tampa Bay would follow the same schedule but start a day earlier in Cleveland.

The Dodgers and Nationals had met only six times during the regular season. They played one series in June in Washington and a series on Los Angeles in early August. Brock had missed all the games so he hadn't had a chance to face the Nationals young hurler. The kid had not pitched in Los Angeles and Brock hadn't made the trip with the team to Washington.

Udo's off-speed pitches kept the Nationals off-balance for the first five innings. Deception was the reason Udo Jergens was an effective starter in professional baseball. His changeup came out of his hand looking like his sinker – and vice versa. By the time the batter realized what was coming it was too late to take an effective swing. The sinker produced a great many grounders which kept the infielders busy. Udo's changeup was a full 10 miles per hour slower than his hard sinker. Batters got ahead of the pitch and if they managed to drive it at all, it was usually into foul territory. His fastball was the same speed as the sinker but didn't drop at the end.

Still, when Udo's stamina started to wane, his pitches stayed up in the strike zone which made him vulnerable in the later innings.

The last two outs in the top of the fifth were hit hard but right at a fielder. One would have been into the right-center field gap for extra bases if Fred Hartman hadn't made a leaping snag at second base.

Jim LaCross was pondering whether to go to his bullpen in a scoreless game. Udo had pitched well and he hated to yank his starter before he gave up a run. But he also understood that one run might be all it took to decide the game. He made a call to the bullpen to get a middle reliever warming up. He would give Udo one base runner in the sixth and that would be it.

In the dugout, Al Perez was sitting beside the young starting pitcher.

"Bear up and keep the ball down," Al advised. "We sweep these guys and you get a full week to rest. Save your fastball for the bottom part of the order; nothing but sinkers and changes for the top part. Just throw strikes and let your fielders do the work."

Udo listened to the outfielder; despite the fact that he knew the last time Al had pitched he had been a sophomore in high school. Al might not be familiar with the mound but he knew baseball. Outside of Jim LaCross and the coaching staff, there was no one who watched as much video on the team's opponents as the star centerfielder. The pitching staff knew without hesitation that Al would never be caught out of position. The young starter nodded his agreement.

He knew he would be pinch-hit for no later than the seventh inning. If he could go seven, he could turn the game over to Rich Jeffcoat and Zack Duffy. But that depended upon the Dodgers scratching out a run in the next two innings.

The team got just what Udo wished for, literally scratching out a run without the benefit of a hit. John Milton led off the sixth with a grounder to third. The Nationals young third baseman bobbled the ball initially then compounded his error by throwing the ball away in his rush to get Milton at first (which wouldn't have happened anyway).

Fred Hartman dropped a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the speedster to third and Wade Watson brought him home with a long fly ball to right field. Al and Josh both struck out but Udo had his run.

LaCross had watched his starter during the half inning in the dugout. Udo showed no signs of nervousness or fatigue. He got a look of determination on his face when Milton crossed the plate and was the first to reach Wade for a high-five when the first baseman returned to the dugout.

He felt a little better about sending his top pitcher back out there for another inning – and Udo, following Al's advice, made his manager's confidence pay off. He shut down the heart of the Nationals order on only 12 pitches, getting three grounders with his sinker.

The last out, however, came two pitches after Washington's No. 5 hitter took an upper-cut swing and sent a towering fly ball to left that hooked foul before landing a dozen rows up in the seats.

Udo came back with a fastball that made the guy look foolish when he swung beneath it by several inches before reverting to his sinker for a harmless grounder to short that ended the frame.

"Do you have one more in you?" LaCross asked when Jergens took his seat.

"My spot in the lineup will come around this inning," Udo said firmly. Brock, the No. 6 hitter, would lead off. That meant the Dodgers would need a base runner – something that had been fairly rare that evening – for Udo's spot to come up.

"If it does, I'm going to send Mendoza up for you," LaCross replied. "But if it doesn't do you think you can go one more?"

"Oh, yeah," Udo said. "I'd like to go one more either way. That foul ball wasn't a mistake on my part. I don't think there was any way he could have hit it fair. The bottom of the order is coming up and I can shut them down."

LaCross nodded and walked down to the end of the dugout, pondering Udo's statements. He took his post on the bottom step of the dugout and watched Brock ground out to third. The next batter, Cesar Davis popped out to right and Jim figured the decision had been made.

Then Danys Sanchez, apparently happy with how things had turned out in the St. Louis game, homered again to deep right field. LaCross had sent Mendoza out to the on-deck circle but called him back as Sanchez circled the bases, a smile firmly planted on his lips.

"Grab a bat, Jergens," LaCross said. "You got one more base runner before I go to the pen."

Udo nodded, grabbed a batting helmet and a bat from the rack and headed to the plate.

The young Nationals pitcher, shaken by allowing a guy who hit .212 during the regular season to take him yard, walked Udo on five pitches. Although it was still a warm night in Los Angeles, a ball boy brought a warm up jacket out for the pitcher to wear while on the base paths. It was just as well because the Washington manager was on his way out of the dugout.