NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� Instead of pitching his hometown team into the World Series, Jack Flaherty sent the National League Championship Series back to California.
Dominant in the opener, Flaherty flopped in Game 5.
Pete Alonso hit a three-run homer in the first and the Mets beat up Flaherty for five runs in the third inning of
鈥淔irst time in a while I kind of let the game speed up on me a little bit and didn't make the adjustment in-game that normally gets made,鈥� Flaherty said.
Flaherty's fastball velocity dropped 1.9 mph from his season average and the spin rate was down markedly on his four-seam fastball and knuckle-curve.
鈥淗e wasn鈥檛 sharp, clearly,鈥� Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 been fighting something. He鈥檚 been under the weather a little bit. So I don鈥檛 know if that bled into the stuff, the velocity. I鈥檓 not sure.鈥�
A high school teammate of Max Fried and Lucas Giolito at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, Flaherty was dealt to the Dodgers by Detroit on July 30. He insisted "there鈥檚 no added frustration鈥� about falling short for LA.
He went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA for the NL West champion Dodgers during the final two months and lost to rival San Diego in Game 2 of their Division Series when he allowed Fernando Tatis Jr.'s solo homer in the first and David Peralta's two-run drive in the third inning of a 10-2 defeat.
Pitching on six days' rest, the right-hander threw seven scoreless innings of two-hit ball against the Mets in the NLCS opener. Back on normal four days' rest for Game 5, he had his first outing with no strikeouts since Sept. 10, 2022, for St. Louis at Pittsburgh.
Flaherty made his first appearance as a 29-year-old following his birthday Tuesday.
Alonso homered on a slider just 1.12 feet above the plate. Then in the third, pulled a two-run double down the left-field line on a sinker that didn鈥檛, Francisco Alvarez hit an RBI single on another sinker, Francisco Lindor pulled a knuckle-curve into the right-field corner for a run-scoring triple and Brandon Nimmo singled into right field for an 8-1 lead.
鈥淭hey did a good job in making adjustments and I didn't,鈥� Flaherty said. 鈥淭hat's part of the challenge of it and what makes the postseason so interesting is facing a team two times in a span of five days.鈥�
___
This story makes editing changes throughout to correct the sequence of the Mets鈥� third-inning rally and the final score in Game 2 of the Padres-Dodgers NLDS.
___
AP MLB:
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
