With home runs by Mookie Betts and Will Smith, plus pitching by Walker Buehler, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants 7 × 2 to tie the NL Division Series at two wins per side.
The best-of-five series moves to San Francisco for the decisive fifth game on Thursday.
The winner of this series will be measured for the National League title to the Atlanta Braves, who won their pass 3-1 against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Leaving San Francisco (107 wins in the regular season), the Giants would go to their first National Championship Series since 2014, when they won their third World Series in a span of five years, as they had titled in the Classic of Fall in 2010 and 2012 too.
The Dodgers became champions last year.
– Dodgers did not want to leave doubts –
The Los Angeles team went out before 52,935 spectators without wanting to leave any pending and in the same first inning they opened the scoring with a run resulting from a single by Corey Seager and a double by Trea Turner.
In the second, they again bit for hits by Gavin Lux and Cody Bellinger and a sacrifice fly by Chris Taylor for another score.
And to leave no doubt, in the fourth they made two for a home run by Mookie Betts, who pushed pitcher Walker Buehler, who had reached base by mistake.
In the fifth, the Giants seriously threatened a single on Evan Longoria, a walk to Steven Duggar, a hit by Tommy La Stella and a pickup on a grounder by Darin Ruf.
The Angelenos’ fifth run came in the fifth inning by a ticket to Lux, a single by Bellinger, another walk to Steven Souza Jr. and a sacrifice fly by Betts.
The Giants showed signs of life in the eighth by scoring a run on a double by Brandon Crawford and picking a grounder by Kris Bryant.
But the Dodgers reminded him that today was his day and scored two more in the eighth on a hit from Seager and a homer from catcher Smith, to increase the count 7×2.
The victory went to supersonic reliever Joe Kelly (1-0) and the reverse to the account of also fire extinguisher Anthony DeSclafani (0-1). AFP (HN)