Jill Weisleder/Los Angeles Dodgers
By Jon Weisman
Daniel Murphy.
It’s not just us. He killed our team, and now he’s killing my Dad’s team. He’s reminding me why it’s never safe to expect our lovable, horrible, irrational sport to make sense.
Daniel Murphy has had a good career. Solid. Even an All-Star in 2014. But home runs in four consecutive playoff games — off Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta?
Do you know what Daniel Murphy’s longest streak of consecutive games with a home run was, before October? Two. Once in his career, Daniel Murphy hit a home run in one game, and then hit a home run in the very next game. That was 6 1/2 years ago.
Daniel Murphy. For some reason I can’t just call him Murphy, even on second reference. It’s just too familiar, too pal-sy. I need to maintain a formal distance from this person, this person who pulled the bat from the stone. Daniel Murphy has no right to do what he has done over the past four games. Except he has every right, because it’s baseball.
It makes me tired. It makes me wonder why one reads or writes or plans before a baseball game. Because no matter what you do, no matter how smart you think you are or that you might actually be, that baseball game’s going to do whatever it wants.
