In biggest of moments, Dodgers’ Jonathan Broxton projects a winner’s bearing
In an All-Star game in which a 13-year drought ended and a New York Yankee was cheered and the biggest out occurred on fly ball that wasn’t caught, Anaheim Stadium was adorned with the most amazing sight.
Jonathan Broxton smiled.
He stomped all over crunch time and afterward he grinned, and laughed, and rubbed his sweat-slicked hair sticking high above that bearish face, and looked like something Dodgers fans have rarely seen in many furrowed moments.
Looked like, you know, a winner.
“It’s a little more fun standing in here when something good happens, huh?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, laughing again. “It is.”
The closer has been saved. The reliever can feel relief. After crumbling in each of the last two postseasons, Broxton turned the third-biggest moment of his career into a charm Tuesday, pitching a scoreless ninth inning to save the National League’s 3-1 victory over the American League.
Of course, it wasn’t easy. That sound of “no, no, no” you may have heard filtering through your television set as he allowed a leadoff single to David Ortiz and fell behind 3-and-0 to John Buck with one out, well, yeah, that was me.
But you know those thank-you cards that Matt Stairs has spent the last two years sending to Broxton?
Well, today, Broxton needs to send one to the lumbering Ortiz, and to bumbling American League Manager Joe Girardi, and to savvy fellow National Leaguer Marlon Byrd.
After being flattened by Stairs in the last two postseasons in moments when everything went wrong, finally, almost mystically, Broxton flattened the other guys thanks to three curious blessings from those three men.
In a game whose pulse was slowed by the death earlier Tuesday of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, whose memory was properly cheered by the Bronx-hating Angels fans, Broxton fought to the sort of magical, meaningful moment that The Boss would have loved.
“I gave it all I had and when I needed more, I reached down and gave it more,” Broxton said.
Certainly, beginning immediately after that first-pitch single to the Boston Red Sox’ Ortiz, he needed more.
Maybe his National League teammates, struggling to win for this game for the first time since 1996, had no idea, but Broxton has yet to mentally wrap his giant self around saving a big game. Two years ago, he allowed a two-run homer to Philadelphia pinch-hitter Stairs to burn the Dodgers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. Last season, in nearly the same situation, he walked Stairs on four pitches and eventually allowed a two-run single to Jimmy Rollins to finish the Dodgers in another Game 4.
So Broxton may have needed a little help from somewhere. And moments later, he got it. Even though the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez was available to pinch-hit, Yankees Manager Girardi stuck with Boston’s Adrian Beltre, a sore-legged player who decided only Monday that he was healthy enough to compete.
Said Girardi: “I could have [used Rodriguez] . . . but I was going to give Beltre his at-bat. If the situation arose, you get extra innings, he would probably be my DH.”
So with Rodriguez kept waiting for the 10th inning — hmmm — Broxton mowed down Beltre on three pitches in the ninth, the last two on wild swings at 97-mph heat.
“I just letting it loose,” Broxton said. “That’s why I was put in that situation.”
He was also put in that situation because, while his 19 saves don’t lead the National League, no regular closer can match his 7.86 strikeout-to-walk ratio. So even when he then fell behind 3-and-0 to Buck, he said he didn’t worry.
“I knew he would be swinging, that’s why he was up there,” Broxton said.
Two pitches later, Buck looped a ball into medium right field, bringing on the second blessing.
Playing out there was the Chicago Cubs’ Byrd, a guy who had not played right field this season, a guy who was relying strictly on memory when, while charging the ball, he made a decision.
“At the last minute, I decided I was going to let it drop,” Byrd said. “I knew if I dove and missed, there would be runners on second and third, and I didn’t want that.”
Of course, he never told Ortiz he was going to let it drop. And the home run derby champion, never to be confused with the 100-yard-dash champion, was stuck between first and second base, giving Broxton his third and final blessing.
Big Papi cried uncle. Byrd threw to second base to nail him on the strangest of force outs and now it was Broxton who was the pointing, pumping, happy giant.
“I never saw Ortiz, I just threw to second on instinct, everything from the angle I took to the spin on the throw,” Byrd said.
Moments later, Ian Kinsler flied out to end the game and Broxton was hugging everyone and beaming about how the win gives the National League home-field advantage in the World Series.
The irony being that his Dodgers will enjoy those spoils only if they are willing to be as aggressive with their wallet as Broxton was with his fastball.
Now that would be a sight.
twitter.com/billplaschke
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