The words were there to be functional and symbolic all at the same time, but they were impossible to miss, scrawled on the dry-erase board in the Dodgers clubhouse following Game 5 of a National League Championship Series that isn’t nearly as close to being over as the St. Louis Cardinals had hoped it was.
“Pack for your next opponent. Detroit or Boston. Bring a jacket.”
The Dodgers are still alive. Not well, per se. Not yet anyway. But alive. And kicking. And screaming, in a good way. And about to board an airplane for St. Louis, which is where they kind of got themselves into this mess in the first place by dropping the first two games of this series last weekend while scoring a grand total of two runs in 22 innings, but on this trip, they have a chance to redeem themselves. If they can steal two more games from the Cardinals. If they can get the timely hitting they got in the second inning today. If they can get just enough add-on runs like they did today, in the form of the franchise NLCS record-tying four solo homers the Dodgers hit this afternoon after hitting none — zero — in the first four games. If they can become the second team in a row, following in the footsteps of their hated rivals from San Francisco a year ago, to come back to beat the Cardinals in an NLCS after falling behind them 3-1.
The Dodgers only trail the Cardinals 3-2 now. To say they have caught their breath would be a bit of an understatement, because what the Dodgers really have done is get their second wind. This series is still very much advantage: Cardinals, who have to do no more than win one of two games on their home turf. But on what was always going to be long, difficult and darn-near impossible road back once they lost Game 4, the Dodgers already have put one-third of that road behind them.
And they have Clayton Kershaw ready to go for Game 6, not on three days’ rest or four days’ rest, but on five.
They still have an ailing Hanley Ramirez, who started all three of the games here despite the excruciating and at times debilitating pain from a hairline fracture in his left rib cage but wasn’t able to finish any of them. They still have a mildly hobbled Andre Ethier, who struggled in this series to get to a couple of balls that were especially difficult to get to but nevertheless were balls he might have gotten to if not for the lingering leg problem that is getting better but still isn’t completely gone. Oh, and the Dodgers are without Matt Kemp until the spring.
But they are getting decent production throughout the lineup now. They scored six runs today, which was one fewer than they had scored in the first four games combined. They will run up against Michael Wacha in Game 6, the same pitcher who completely handcuffed them in Game 2, and if they survive that, they will run up against Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright in Game 7, when Hyun-jin Ryu is scheduled to pitch.
But the Dodgers have a heartbeat. They have a chartered plane out of town around 3 p.m. tomorrow. And they have a dream that hasn’t died yet.
They even have a dry-erase board in the clubhouse to prove it.