October 24, 2017: Kershaw, Turner, Mother Nature bring the heat for Dodgers in World Series opener

The average high temperature in Los Angeles on October 24 is 76 degrees Fahrenheit.1 The weather for Game One of the 2017 World Series at Dodger Stadium did not follow historical trends. Rather, the Los Angeles Dodgers hosted the Houston Astros with the thermometer reading 103 degrees at the 5:11 P.M. starting time, making for the hottest game in World Series history.2 Greeting the early arrivals who sought the shaded areas of the grandstand, the organist played 1960s classics like “Heat Wave” and “Summer in the City.”3 Given the temperature, there were questions about how the unusual heat would affect the flight of the baseball, with one columnist observing that the heat “thinned the usually thick marine air that rolls into Chavez Ravine in the evening.”4 Without the drag, might the ball carry in atypical ways. If so, which team might benefit?

The Series itself had the promise of a classic, being the first to match 100-game winners since 1970.5 The Dodgers (104-58) swept the Arizona Diamondbacks (3-0) in the NL Division Series and smothered the defending champion Chicago Cubs (4-1) in the Championship Series. Houston (101-61) faced a stiffer challenge from AL opposition, but used a 6-0 home record to take out the Boston Red Sox in the Division Series (3-1) and the New York Yankees (4-3) in the Championship Series.

The World Series Game One pitching matchup featured the sort of duel that often marked the great Series games. Houston’s Dallas Keuchel was two years removed from his AL Cy Young Award-winning season, but the left-hander still enjoyed an All-Star-caliber season in 2017 with a 14-5 record and a 2.90 ERA. Keuchel recognized the challenge of pitching to the NL pennant winners. He noted, “They’ll be the deepest team that we’ve played, hands down. You don’t win a hundred-plus games for just luck of the draw.”6 Keuchel led the AL in ground ball to fly ball ratio,7 suggesting that his pitching style was well-suited to the ball staying inside the ballpark. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made clear the team’s offensive strategy: “Light air today … so I think for us to try to get underneath it and try to put the ball in the air. With him obviously, it’s a tall task.”8

Clayton Kershaw led the NL in wins and ERA (18-4, 2.31) and exceeded 200 strikeouts for the seventh time. By this stage in his career, Kershaw had an unfortunate association with postseason mediocrity, entering the game with a 6-7 postseason record with a 4.40 ERA.9 There was some question whether the infield behind Kershaw would be at full strength. Justin Turner was held out of a recent workout, but the Dodgers third baseman assured that the absence was only maintenance-related. The availability of All-Star shortstop Corey Seager for the Series was a greater concern. Seager injured his back on a seemingly routine slide into second base in Game Three of the Division Series, and was inactive for the Championship Series. Rehabilitation work paid off, and Seager was restored to the active roster for the World Series.

The October 24 date of the game had greater significance than record-shattering temperatures. It was the 45th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s death, and his widow, Rachel Robinson delivered the ceremonial first pitch accompanied by her family. Then Kershaw faced Astros center fielder George Springer to open the game, and Springer swung and missed at strike three for the first out. Kershaw made short work of Alex Bregman (fly out to Kiké Hernández) and José Altuve (grounder to Seager) to complete the top of the first on only nine pitches.

Multidimensional Chris Taylor, starting in center field, led off the bottom of the first. Roberts’ pregame words seemed immediately prescient when Taylor blasted Keuchel’s first pitch into the left-field pavilion. Taylor said after the game that pouncing on Keuchel was his plan. He said, “I didn’t overthink it. I was just going up there trying to get the barrel to the ball, thinking without being aggressive, and be ready to hit the first one.”10 In his excitement, Taylor broke one of baseball’s unwritten rules by flipping his bat, although the act was not necessarily included in his plan. He said, “I wasn’t trying to do a bat flip or anything, just kind of almost like a fist pump-bat flip.”11 Whatever Taylor’s motive, the Dodgers had a quick 1-0 lead. Keuchel permitted no further damage, striking out Turner then getting groundouts from Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig.

Kershaw and Keuchel both cruised through the second. Leading off the Dodgers third and starting in place of Yasmani Grandal in his role as Kershaw’s personal catcher, Austin Barnes singled on a grounder to left field. Kershaw sacrificed his batterymate to second base. Taylor hit a liner to shortstop Carlos Correa, who tossed the ball to Altuve at second to double off Barnes.

Leading off the fourth, Bregman connected with a Kershaw fastball and sent it soaring six rows deep into the left-field pavilion. Game One was now tied, 1-1. If Kershaw was fazed by Bergman’s solo shot, he did not show it: He struck out Altuve, Correa, and Yuli Gurriel to retire the Astros. Keuchel and Kershaw faced the minimum number of batters for each of the next two innings, as the game clipped along at a breakneck pace by the standard of twenty-first century postseason baseball before the pitch clock. (In fact, this game was the fastest World Series game since 1992.)

In the Dodgers sixth Barnes and Kershaw hit grounders to shortstop Correa for easy outs. Taylor walked on five pitches to keep the inning alive and bring Turner to the plate. Turner, whose career had taken off in Los Angeles, made his first All-Star Game appearance at age 32 in 2017. He took Keuchel’s first pitch low and inside, then swung and missed to even the count. Keuchel went low and outside on the next pitch; Turner held off but umpire Phil Cuzzi judged the pitch a strike. Keuchel threw twice to first baseman Gurriel to keep Taylor honest. His next throw was an 87-mph cutter that appeared designed to jam the right-handed Turner, who adjusted to meet the ball with enough of the bat to loft the ball into left-center field. Marwin González tracked the ball until he conceded it was beyond his reach. The ball cleared the fence and landed in front of the pavilion seats. Bellinger flailed at the third strike for the final out, but the Dodgers led, 3-1.

Seventh innings had provided the greatest source of Kershaw’s postseason anguish. He took the mound for this seventh inning, bringing from the dugout a career postseason seventh-inning ERA of 25.50.12 Altuve led off with a grounder that found a hole between Seager and Turner for a single. Correa’s bouncer to Turner forced Altuve at second. Gurriel grounded to shortstop Seager for a potential inning-ending double-play ball. Seager, though, fumbled the exchange from glove to hand. But he managed to scoop the ball to Logan Forsythe for the force at second. There was no seventh-inning jinx for Kershaw this time. Brian McCann flied to Taylor for the third out.

Although his pitch count sat at a relatively modest 83 pitches, Kershaw’s evening reached its end with one earned run, three hits, zero walks, and 11 strikeouts; Kershaw joined Don Newcombe as the only Dodgers pitchers to achieve 11 strikeouts with no walks in a World Series game. The Dodgers bullpen possessed the best ERA in the regular season, and they carried that success to the postseason with a 0.94 mark.13 Roberts trusted the lead to Brandon Morrow and Kenley Jansen. The pair had combined for a scoreless innings streak that stretched back to Game Two of the NLDS.14 Roberts’ confidence was well placed. Morrow retired the Astros in order in the eighth, and Jansen earned the save by doing the same in the ninth. Cue Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” and the Dodgers claimed the early advantage in the World Series.

About his deciding home run, Turner nodded to the weather. He said, ““[I]f it’s 10 degrees cooler, that’s probably a routine fly ball.”15 Keuchel seemed to agree, commenting, “I didn’t think it was going out by any mean. … I was trying to get in on him and I thought I did. He didn’t square it up by any means.”16

For Kershaw, Game One was an evening of redemption. He flipped the narrative into a gem, or as teammate Brandon McCarthy said, “That, to me, was his masterpiece.”17

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, and viewed the Fox broadcast of the game accessible at youtube.com.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN201710240.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2017/B10240LAN2017.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2QVELDu_Y4

Notes

1 Weather Spark, accessed at https://weatherspark.com/d/1705/10/24/Average-Weather-on-October-24-in-Los-Angeles-California-United-States#Figures-Temperature.

2 Bill Plaschke, “A Scorching Hot Opener,” Los Angeles Times, October 25, 2017: A1.

3 Associated Press, “Kershaw, Dodgers Beat Astros 3-1 in Hot World Series Opener,” ESPN.com, October 24, 2014. https://www.espn.com/mlb/recap/_/gameId/371024119. Accessed December 30, 2023.

4 Billy Witz, “Game One Is No Sweat for Dodgers,” New York Times, October 25, 2017: B-11.

5 The 1970 World Series matched the 108-54 Baltimore Orioles and the 102-60 Cincinnati Reds. The Orioles won the Series in five games.

6 Pedro Moura and Kevin Baxter, “ Keuchel Recalls the Lean Years in Houston,” Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2017: V13.

7 Witz.

8 Witz.

9 “Kershaw, Dodgers Beat Astros 3-1 in Hot World Series Opener.”

10 Witz.

11 Plaschke.

12 Plaschke.

13 Moura and Baxter.

14 Andy McCullough and Kevin Baxter, “Roster Move Is Not a Stunner,” Los Angeles Times, October 25, 2017: D3.

15 Witz.

16 Witz.

17 Plaschke.