About Southern California’s two sports obsessions, the Dodgers and the Lakers – Orange County Register

Jim Alexander: I’m reporting from Flushing, NY, where we’re just a few hours away from Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Jose Quintana… and yes, I know the starters’ duel doesn’t carry as much baseball weight as it still does a few years ago. This time of year, it’s all about the bullpens – as the Dodgers have unfortunately learned in recent seasons.

But starting pitching is crucial in this situation, especially when you only have three functional members of your rotation for a best-of-seven series. Jack Flaherty hit like an ace in Game 1 against the Mets, Yamamoto was dominant in the Division Series decider in Game 5 against San Diego, and Walker Buehler gave the Dodgers four valuable innings in Game 3 last night, showing he didn’t has to be the fastball-dominant pitcher he once was – and that he’s finally realizing it.

The 3-and-2 curveball he dropped last night against Francisco Lindor for a huge strikeout was a sign that he now gets it. Sometimes it takes a while after Tommy John surgery for a pitcher to realize he needs to change.

So Wednesday night theoretically gave the Dodgers an advantage. Three of the final four games will involve traditional starters if necessary (i.e. only one bullpen game will be required, likely in Game 6). If Yamamoto and Flaherty can pitch like stars, it will be done before Bill Plunkett and I and everyone else gets back to LA

But unlike some columnists, I’m not ready to call it quits. The Mets are good, they got stung last night and are hoping to come back strong, and left-hander Quintana (10-10, 3.75 ERA during the regular season) is capable of delivering a series-tying effort tonight.

However…if it comes to a bullpen battle, the Mets have Edwin Diaz, but the Dodgers have strength in numbers.

Miriam Swanson: I have to agree with you, Jim!

As dominant as the Dodgers looked last night, this is not the 2001 Lakers-76ers Finals, where a Lakers championship was purely academic and it took a superhuman effort from Allen Iverson – the good AI – to score a game for Philly to win.

These are the Mets who must never die. Their entire season was a study in the resurrection from the dead. They were 21-29 after 50 games and 28-37 when old Grimace threw out the first pitch. Since then, as has been well documented, the Mets have lived big and loved it – 61-36 at the end of the regular season.

This is not a team that will leave quietly. I know recency bias is a powerful stimulant, but the Mets simply beat the Dodgers on Monday. Canceling it is not only premature, it’s also silly.

That means… the Dodgers — who, yes, are leaning on the bullpen quota — could finish the whole thing before you and Bill Plunkett get home.

But it’s not like it’s going to be easy.

I need to know – what mood is out there? How does this part of New York feel? Are they believers? Did yesterday’s result, which sent the poor, tired and cold fans fleeing, dampen the mood?

Jim: The Mets fans I shared a shuttle bus with last night didn’t seem particularly discouraged. It seems that there is still a happy mood tonight. After all, the Mets are back in the NLCS for the first time since 2015, when they beat the Cubs — a year before that franchise’s glorious October. The Mets lost the World Series to Kansas City that year, just as they lost the Subway Series to the Yankees in 2000 (and Joe Torre has an anecdote about that that I’ll get to in a moment).

Darryl Strawberry threw the ceremonial first pitch to Dwight Gooden on Wednesday night. In a pregame session in the interview room, they were asked about 1988 – not a good memory for Mets fans, but a happy one for Dodgers fans – and it was Gooden who noted that the 1988 Mets team was better on paper than the 1986 team that won it all, but that 1986 team had “chemistry, we had heart.” (The 1986 team also had backup Jesse Orosco. He was a Dodger in 1988.)

But this being New York, there is a sense of entitlement and a feeling that the Mets and Yankees are destined to play in another Subway Series. (And it doesn’t matter that the TV ratings would be well below Fox’s expectations if it were an all-New York show.) Which brings us to the Torre anecdote he told in 2008 when he was managing the Dodgers , there was a possibility of a Freeway World Series – remember when the Angels were good? – and I asked him what it was like in the year 2000.

“Torture,” he said. “I started managing with the Mets, so I knew how important it was against the Yankees — spring training, the Mayor’s Trophy game, whatever it was. Then I went to the Yankees and beating the Mets was just as important.”

(Even more so when I wrote at the time, given the late George Steinbrenner’s obsession with the back pages of the Daily News and Post.)

“So you can easily imagine playing a World Series against the Mets,” Torre continued, “where you should win because you’re kind of a resident big league team and they’re the expansion team.” That was probably the most grueling thing of all.”

Torre also revealed this: For the middle three games at Shea Stadium, Steinbrenner arranged for Yankee Stadium’s clubhouse furniture to be transported from the Bronx to Queens and set up in the visitors’ clubhouse. The man has thought of everything.

Mirjam: These are great anecdotes. And great perspective. Torre, a great storyteller.

So what awaits us on the field tonight? The Dodgers have gained a lead, but we have an 8pm start again on the East Coast (cool with us here in California!) and it looks to be a must for the Mets against Yamamoto, who pitched so well last time out . as you already mentioned…

How could things continue? I don’t think there will be a bang this time. I think we’re in for a close duel. Unless, of course, Shohei Ohtani shows up a few times with runners on base, then…things could get ugly again in a hurry. (And what do you think of his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine with or without a runner?)

Jim: Here’s the thing about the game starting at 8 p.m.: It feels like you’re waiting forever for the game to start. I had to keep reminding myself last night that this is for the benefit of the West Coast television audience. (Although I do have a problem with the idea that Fox released these games on FS1 and not the major network. And I wonder if anyone, either in the Fox offices or those at MLB, thought that the ratings might be exponentially higher if they released these games on network affiliates in home markets, at least like the NFL.)

As for Shohei, I found Harold Reynolds’ analysis of MLB Network, which I touched on in today’s column, interesting and carries some weight. When Ohtani uses the simple relaxation technique of resting his racket on his shoulder before getting into hitting position, he seems to have more success. He didn’t do that, but he did it on the first pitch before the blast against Tylor Megill last night.

I really believe he will be fine. Getting hit for the first time without anyone on base could open the floodgates.

In the meantime, time waits for none of us. The hockey season has already started – the Kings aren’t looking good, while the young Ducks won their home opener against Utah (and it’s great to have the scowling duck back on their sweaters) – and the NBA isn’t too far behind. The Lakers are this community’s other sports obsession – so tell me, is there reason to be optimistic that this passion will be worth it this season?

(In other words, is JJ Redick the next Pat Riley, as some terminal optimists suspected when he was hired?)

Miriam: I would say there is room for selective, cautious optimism? Is that a thing?

The Lakers’ big offseason addition was Redick – a debut coach with good ideas and a good rapport with LeBron, as well as a lot of confidence. Will he be the next Riley? Will he be the next Derek Fisher? Will he end up somewhere in between – and would Lakers fans accept that? It’s hard to imagine anything other than the first option really satisfying this fan base, but we’ll see!

Redick will lead a roster largely similar to last year’s if you take away Taurean Prince and Spencer Dinwiddie and replace those NBA rotation players with rookies Dalton Knecht and Bronny James. Of course, LeBron is – because time waits for none of us – a year older. But his run at the Olympics this summer was so impressive that it just feels like it should stay that way.

The question is, can Redick get more out of this Lakers roster than Darvin Ham? And if he can, how much more? He plans to hit 50 3-pointers per game (not really, he said, but…it seems like he wants it to feel like that). He wants to rush out of the corners. He wants to experiment with playing Jaxson Hayes opposite Anthony Davis. All ideas with advantages… and potential disadvantages.

The Lakers should have been better than them last season. But I don’t know how much better. And as this season begins, it feels like there’s a world in which they actually have it worse.

So no, I’m not overly optimistic. But I’m also open-minded. Because what if JJ was the next Riley?

Do you make sense of what you heard from JJ and the team during their preseason media sessions?

Jim: The only vibe I get is that JJ is willing to do different things strategically and analytically, and that could be a win for an organization that seems forever tied to the way things are done in of the “Showtime” era. At some point, the star power and allure of the banners hanging at one end of the arena are no longer enough.

And the other thing I think will be helpful is that JJ has only been playing relatively recently and seems to have a good handle on the way to approach players. If he can get people to buy in, that could be fun. Given that this team has only avoided the play-in round since its inception by missing the playoffs entirely, perhaps the guys are willing to listen.