Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty reacts during the third inning in Game 5 of a baseball NL Championship Series against the New York Mets, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
NEW YORK (AP) – Instead of pitching his hometown team into the World Series, Jack Flaherty sent the NL 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 a 12-6 victory Friday night that pulled New York to 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.
“First time 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 get made,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty’s fastball velocity dropped 1.9 mph from from his season average and the spin rate was down markedly on his four-seam fastball and his knuckle-curve.
“He wasn’t sharp, clearly,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s been fighting something. He’s been under the weather a little bit. So I don’t know if that bled into the stuff, the velocity. I’m not sure.”
A teammate of Max Fried and Lucas Giolito at Harvard-Westlake, Flaherty was dealt to the Dodgers by Detroit on July 30. He insisted “there’s no added frustration” about falling short for LA.
He went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA for Los Angeles during the final two months and lost to San Diego in Game 2 of the Division Series when he allowed Fernando Tatis’ solo homer in the first and David Peralta’s two-run drive in the third inning of a 5-2 defeat.
Pitching on six days’ rest, the right-hander threw seven scoreless innings of two-hit ball against the Mets. 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 fifth, Starling Marte pulled a two-run double down the left-field line on a sinker that didn’t, Francisco Alvarez hit an RBI single on another sinker, Francisco Lindor pulled a knuckle-curve into the right-field corner for a two-run triple and singled into right field for an 8-2 lead.
“They did a good job in making adjustments and I didn’t,” Flaherty said. “That’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.”
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