Playoff series for the ages as Dodgers, Giants go to Game 5

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Everybody expected a playoff series for the ages between the century-old rival Dodgers and Giants, and now they've got it.

Anything less than a winner-take-all Game 5 would have been a baseball travesty, leaving the sport short-changed on the October stage.

It's the 107-win, NL West champion Giants vs. the defending World Series champ Los Angeles Dodgers for a place in the NL Championship Series against Atlanta starting Saturday night.

It all comes down to Game 5 on Thursday night, back at the San Francisco's Oracle Park after the Dodgers staved off elimination with a 7-2 victory at home Tuesday night.

So you can see why San Francisco third baseman Evan Longoria would prefer a best-of-seven over this short NL Division Series before one of these two has to go home for the winter.

“I feel like this may also be like a series or a moment where baseball may have to think about restructuring the way that the playoffs happen — 106 and 107 wins doesn’t feel like a DS matchup,” Longoria said last week before his home run lifted the Giants 1-0 in Game 3. “... I just feel like there’s two teams that win this many games, it seems early to match up us two.”

Mookie Betts and LA have played their share of winner-take-all games the past two seasons.

“We’ve had a lot of success here and in the past four, five, six, whatever years, and I think one of the biggest things is there’s teams that operate out of, ‘We want to get here,’ and there’s teams that it’s disappointing if we don’t get there, and I think we’re one of those teams that it’s disappointing if we don’t get there,” Betts said. “I think you sense that in there and you find a way to do little things that you might not do in the regular season. You find a...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Playoff-series-for-the-ages-as-Dodgers-Giants-go-16530743.php