Instead of leading his hometown team to the World Series, Jack Flaherty sent the National League Championship Series back to California. After a strong performance in the first game, Flaherty struggled in Game 5.
Pete Alonso hit a three-run homer in the first inning, and the Mets scored five runs against Flaherty in the third inning, winning 12-6 and bringing the series to 3-2 in favor of the Dodgers.
“First 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,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty’s fastball speed was down by 1.9 mph from his usual average, and the spin rate was also much lower on his four-seam fastball and knuckle-curve.
“He wasn’t sharp, clearly,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “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.”
Flaherty, who played high school baseball with Max Fried and Lucas Giolito at Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, was traded to the Dodgers by Detroit on July 30. He stated, “there’s no added frustration” about not succeeding for LA.
He had a record of 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA for the Dodgers during the last two months of the season. He lost to San Diego in Game 2 of their Division Series, allowing a solo homer to Fernando Tatis Jr. and a two-run shot to David Peralta in a 10-2 loss.
Pitching with six days’ rest, Flaherty threw seven scoreless innings with only two hits against the Mets in the first game of the NLCS. However, back on four days’ rest for Game 5, he had no strikeouts, marking his first outing without one since September 10, 2022, for St. Louis against Pittsburgh.
This was Flaherty’s first game as a 29-year-old after his birthday on Tuesday.
Alonso hit a homer on a slider that was just 1.12 feet above the plate. Later, in the third inning, Starling Marte hit a two-run double down the left-field line on a sinker, Francisco Alvarez got an RBI single on another sinker, Francisco Lindor hit a triple into the right-field corner on a knuckle-curve, and Brandon Nimmo added a single to right field for an 8-1 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.”
