Dodgers are suddenly in a Texas-sized hole after Game 3 loss to Astros

Two days after one of the most devastating losses in franchise history, the flattened Dodgers stayed down, stared up, and watched the Houston Astros continue to swagger their way through this World Series.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it became Texas-sized bad, the Dodgers following their Game 2 collapse with a Game 3 meltdown Friday night in a 5-3 loss at Minute Maid Park that took the locals back to their dark side.

Remember that team that went 52-9 at one point this summer? Well, these were the guys that went 1-16.

Remember the team that rode Clayton Kershaw to a Series opening win? That team is now trailing two games to one and must rely on postseason newbie Alex Wood to pull them out of the hole against Houston’s Charlie Morton in Game 3 Saturday night here.

“The Dodgers have a lot left in the tank, this series is far from over, we’re going to come back from this,’’ said Enrique Hernandez afterward in a second consecutive quiet clubhouse.

On Friday night, this was awfully ugly.

This was starting pitcher Yu Darvish never getting comfortable, never acting engaged and, frankly, barely even showing up.

This was the defense recording a new statistic that could be called a triple-bobble — they committed one throwing error, one fielding error and blew one big throw.

This was an offense that collected only four hits while botching it badly on the bases.

Meanwhile, the Dodger have to figure out how to stop rolling out these late-August messes in the middle of baseball’s biggest October stage. On Friday night it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Who could have thought it would happen like this? In the wake of their late-inning collapse in a series-tying Game 2 on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, it was presumed the resilient Dodgers would quickly recover.

They didn’t. They stayed flattened. It started with Darvish, who took the mound with a 2-0 record and 1.59 ERA in this postseason. But a day earlier, he gave a press conference during which he seemed uncomfortable and uncertain.

Those who thought the moment might be too big for him were right. He allowed a double to George Springer on his fifth pitch of the game and never stopped reeling, collapsing in a flurry of Astros line drives in the second .

By the time Darvish was mercifully removed, he had allowed four runs and six hits in less than two full innings while inducing just one swing-and-miss amid his 49 pitches. The Astros batted .600 against him. It was the shortest outing of his five-year career.

Darvish will be seeking as much as $175 million this winter in free agency. Here’s guessing the Dodgers could have trouble connecting those numbers with the ones he produced Friday.

The four runs were all the Astros would need because the Dodgers could never find their legs. Or their bats. Or their arms.

Source: latimes