Hoornstra: Here’s how to fix 5-day layoff for MLB’s top-seeded playoff teams

• October 19, 2023

When Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association compromised on an expanded 12-team playoff field, it came with a rather consequential side effect: five days off at the end of the regular season for the two best teams in each league.

That downtime didn’t stop the Houston Astros from beating the Minnesota Twins in the American League Division Series, but it did seem to neuter the Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles in their respective series. They combined to go 1-9 in the division series round after each team won at least 100 games in the regular season.

In the aftermath of their losses, it was interesting to hear the principals from each team try to reconcile their regular-season dominance with their postseason faceplants.

“I mean, we thought we did everything possible during the delay, recreated things the best we could,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said shortly after his team was eliminated by the Philadelphia Phillies.

“We tried to simulate a lot of at-bats Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, because there’s no question that five days off affects hitters’ timing,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at his annual end-of-season press conference on Tuesday. “Now if getting enough at-bats leading up to that keeps that timing in place, obviously we didn’t do a good enough job.”

The Dodgers opened one of their three intrasquad games to fans and reporters. Of the 11 pitchers who faced their teammates that day, all 11 saw action on a major league mound during the 2023 season. The quality of pitching the Dodgers’ hitters faced during their five-day layoff wasn’t an issue. Neither, perhaps, was the quantity of at-bats they took.

From the press box at least, the problem appeared to be one of intensity.

Half of the Dodgers’ players wore white jersey tops, the other half blue, but occasionally a blue player would bat for the white squad. Some innings lasted three outs, some four, others five. A smattering of fans in the lower deck of seats in left field helped fill the air with noise. By the end of the game, you could hardly blame fans for focusing more on two screens above the bleachers showing the Arizona Diamondbacks’ wild-card game against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Taking a baseball player out of the routine he performs 162 times a year is anathema to intensity. From the beginning of April until the end of September, there are only game days or non-game days. One brings a degree of intensity. The other does not. There’s simply no way around that.

“Our goal next year is to win the division and have those five days off again,” Friedman said. “It’s two years into this (postseason) format. We don’t concern ourselves too much with what’s optimal, what’s ideal. It doesn’t really matter. It is what it is. For us, it’s about how to operate the best we can within it.”

Here’s an idea for the two top-seeded teams in each league: Fill your five off-days with practice games. Keep the number of at-bats and quality of opposing pitchers high. Only next time, make sure it’s a game of consequence for one of the two teams on the field.

How?

As it turns out, Oct. 2-7 wasn’t a game day for nearly every professional baseball team on the planet. That includes the champions of each of the four independent “partner leagues” of MLB: the Atlantic League, the American Association, the Frontier League and the Pioneer League.

The Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks cut it close. On Oct. 1, they defeated los Caimanes Barranquilla, the top team in Colombia’s professional league, to close out the Baseball Champions League Americas tournament in Mexico. The next day, they flew home.

How practical would it have been for Fargo-Moorhead to divert its journey through, say, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Baltimore or Houston for a few days? Very, said Joshua Schaub, the commissioner of the American Association.

“We’re more than willing to get on a plane to play an MLB team,” he said.

An American Association team typically travels “29 or 30 people” on a road trip, Schaub said. He estimated it would cost no more than $15,000 to fly them all into any major airport. That’s pocket change for an MLB team.

The caliber of competition in the AA isn’t entirely major-league quality, but it’s not far off. Fargo’s leadoff hitter was Dillon Thomas, who as recently as last season was in the major leagues with the Angels. There are a few pitchers in the league who can touch 100 mph, Schaub said, “but usually they sit 92 or faster.” Control isn’t such an issue that hitters would be left ducking for cover.

Want the independent ballers to raise their intensity for an exhibition game? Invite scouts. Schaub said there were 52 in attendance at the Baseball Champions League Americas tournament.

“Guys play their (butts) off to get picked up by a scout in attendance,” he said.

The Atlantic League postseason also ends just in time for MLB’s wild-card round. The league selects players to an All-Star team too, but unlike the American Association they don’t stage a game – practically begging for an excuse to get the All-Stars on the field. This season, Atlantic League teams could have filled a pitching staff with 10 former major leaguers from their season-ending rosters.

“Having a member of the Atlantic League play an exhibition game or series against an MLB club preparing for the postseason would be a concept that we would be very willing to discuss,” Atlantic League president Rick White said. “There could be a number of options, whether a current club or a collection of top players, and the logistics would need to be worked out. But as a concept, we would be open to the idea. I can promise you that any collection of the Atlantic League’s top players would certainly be a worthy opponent for any club preparing for the postseason. Of course, any such discussion would be subject to the approval of Major League Baseball.”

To participate in a three-game exhibition series after the regular season, the current Collective Bargaining Agreement only requires that players get permission from their team and the commissioner. Staging an early-October series against a team full of indy ball opponents with something at stake, in theory, should not be a tough sell to players. It was the Players’ Association who first raised concerns about the effects of a five-day layoff during CBA negotiations before ultimately agreeing to an expanded 12-team postseason.

Four independent “partner leagues” and four postseason teams struggling with a five-day layoff seems like a perfect marriage. Of course, no marriage is perfect. The caliber of play in the Frontier and Pioneer leagues isn’t as high as the American Association or Atlantic League. The specifics would have to be ironed out.

Even if the exhibition games don’t perfectly simulate a game-day experience for the major league players, it should raise their level of intensity by a notch. Given the limitations of a 12-team playoff field, that should be the goal of every team facing the blessed curse of a five-day layoff.

​ Orange County Register 

With ‘The Persian Version,’ filmmaker Maryam Keshavarz spills family secrets

• October 19, 2023

Maryam Keshavarz thought she was just sharing funny stories at a party.

About how as a little girl she smuggled Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” into Iran on a trip from her home in New York City to visit relatives there in the land of her parents.

About the strange sense of rootlessness that comes from being an Iranian American with your feet and heart in two different cultures.

About the jaw-dropping secret her mother and father had kept from Keshavarz and her seven brothers for years, a secret that explained so much about her relationship with her mother.

Just stories at a party. And then:

“I didn’t know one of the people I was telling was a producer from Cinereach,” says Keshavarz, who a little over 20 years ago left a career in academia to become a filmmaker. “They were like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so funny. You have to write that.’

I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’” she says. “I was kind of skirting the issue, and they kept stalking me. Then I said, ‘Well, I’ll write it if it can be a comedy.’ They’re like, ‘Great idea!’”

In a way, “The Persian Version, which opened in Los Angeles and New York City on Friday, Oct. 20, and expands to more cities on each of the next two Fridays, was the perfect film for her to make, Keshavarez says.

“After 9/11, I left academia to go into cinema to tell a more nuanced version of stories from the Middle East,” she says. “I made a couple of films, I worked in TV. Then, when Trump came into office, there was a lot of xenophobic rhetoric, a lot of ideas about the Muslim ban.

“I thought, ‘You know, if I think about it, I’ve never been represented in cinema or TV,” Keshavarz says. “It’s something I’d always longed for as a child.

“It’s time to show being American has many different faces,” she says. “I really want to tell an American story that showed our life here, and also our history where we come from, and there had never been such a film made.”

Keshavarz was in, but first she had to tell her mother, Azar Keshavarz, and seven brothers – their father had died when she was 22 – and get them to sign their life rights over to her.

“They were like, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know how I will look,’” she says of the seven brothers, all but one of whom let her use them in the film. “I said, ‘Don’t worry. I promise you one thing. I will look the worst in this, and I will poke fun more at myself than anyone else.’”

Drawn from life

Part of the fun in “The Persian Version” comes from the twists and turns of the relationship between daughter Leila (Layla Mohammadi) and mother Shireen (Niousha Noor).

Still, it won’t hurt to share that the catalyst for the story – Leila, having just split from her wife, gets pregnant by a guy she meets at a Halloween party – is just one story taken directly from Keshavarz’s own life.

“It’s more than semi-autobiographical,” Keshavarz says, laughing, of the film that won both the Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival this year. “All of these things are true, I think they’re just in different orders.

“Like, I knew it would be a comedy, but in real life, my father died when I was 22. He had the heart transplant, just like in the film. I did meet the father of my daughter at a Halloween party. I have seven brothers, not eight like in the movie. I grew up with one bathroom. All those things are true.

“My mother’s story is 100 percent true, like almost to a T,” she says. “So (writing the screenplay) was really more about guiding the story. I think I realized as I was writing, it’s writing as a way to understand where we come from.

“Then I thought about the secret,” Keshavarz says about her mother’s life-changing decision both in the film and real life. “And I realized, oh, there’s another writer in the story and it’s not me. It’s my mother because she’s writing her own story.”

Mothers and daughters

Making the film allowed Keshavarz to recreate the chapters of her life with different looks for each of the three women it focuses on at different times.

For Layla, the stand-in for Keshavarz, the bright colors of ’80s and ’90s sitcoms and music videos fill the screen. The film opens and closes with a Bollywood-esque dance number to “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” with the extended family in Iran. (Former Vampire Weekend multi-instrumentalist did the movie’s music, including a Persian-influenced arrangement of Lauper’s hit at the end of the film.)

For grandmother Mamanjoon (Bella Warda), who spills the family secret, there’s a kind of spaghetti Western quality to the chapter shot in a remote and dusty village when Shireen, married and a mother at 14, makes a decision that will change the course of the family. (For the Iranian scenes, Keshavarz shot in Turkey. Since 2011, when “Circumstance,” her film about two Iranian girls falling in love also won the Sundance Audience Award, she’s been banned from returning to Iran.)

For Shireen, who in the United States must act to save the family after her husband Ali Reza (Bijan Daneshmand) grows ill, Keshavarz looked to mid-century Italian cinema.

“My mother’s like the typical neo-realist film,” she says. “She was very much still holding the weight of the past with her.”

Given how fraught the relationship is between the mother and daughter in the film, one wonders how Keshavarz’s own mother reacted when she saw their lives transposed to the screen.

“I only finished the film two days before Sundance so no one saw it. Even me,” she says. “And then I couldn’t find her after the premiere. Went to the party, and 200 people are dancing and talking, and my mom, she’s very little, she comes up and grabs my face.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, in front of everyone, she’s going to slap me!’” Keshavarz says, laughing. “And she says, ‘You did us justice.’

“That was like the best review, because there’s so much in there that’s personal.”

Universal lives

To Keshavarz, “The Persian Version” offers different places for viewers to connect.

“I think the film is so much about resilience, particularly women’s resilience within difficult times,” she says. “You know, when they’re coming into (Iran), and she’s smuggling the tapes, it’s very monochromatic. It’s like the oppression of the government.

“So when they go to the family home, and she emerges with a tape of ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun,’ it’s Technicolor, it’s so vibrant. I want to show no matter what you can’t extinguish joy.”

Iranian American audiences have seen in it pieces of their own stories, but Keshavarz believes no matter one’s heritage, the themes of family and generations and love and secrets will resonate.

“I always apologize to the audiences,” she says. “You’re about to spend the next two hours with my crazy family. But I think that’s what’s so wonderful. They get submerged in another culture. An immigrant culture, maybe not like their own, but I think they probably will see themselves in some way reflected.

“Because we’ve all felt like outsiders at some point,” Keshavarz says. “Be it if we’re immigrants, if we’re gay, if we’re an artist, if we have different political views. Be it for whatever reason.

“So I hope that if you’re Iranian, you feel yourself reflected. If you’re not Iranian, you feel like, ‘Oh, these people aren’t that different from me, and they’re fun.”

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‘The Persian Version’ screenings

What: Director Maryam Keshavarz will do Q&As at two separate screenings of the film.

When: 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 25

Where: Regal Irvine Spectrum, 500 Spectrum Center, Irvine

How much: $10 to $15 plus service charges via Eventbrite

For more: To purchase tickets go to Eventbrite.com and search for ‘The Persian Version’

​ Orange County Register 

Hamas apologists plague the Ivory Tower

• October 19, 2023

Institutions of higher ed have long been known hotbeds of radical left-wing activism, both in and out of the classroom. In the aftermath of Hamas’ terrorist assault on Jews in Israel, universities across the country are rightly paying the price, both financially and reputationally, for their radicalism.

At Cornell University, Professor Russell Rickford has been captured on video describing Hamas’ terrorist actions as “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

“They were able to breathe for the first time in years. It was exhilarating. It was energizing. And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated,” said the history professor, whose college bio describes him as an expert in “the Black Radical Tradition.”

At Harvard University, dozens of student groups signed onto a letter declaring, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”

Some of the student groups pulled out from the letter after its publication, but it’s remarkable that so many at a supposedly prestigious university would sign on to such a vacuous statement.

At Yale University, Professor Zareena Grewal, a self-described “radical Muslim,” has repeatedly engaged in pro-Hamas propaganda.

In response to a tweet pointing out the obvious, that “Civilians are civilians are civilians, doesn’t matter where,” Grewal responded, “Settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.”

At the University of California, Los Angeles, student groups held a rally where they were caught on video chanting “Intifada,” a reference to Palestinian uprisings against Israel.

“As a @UCLA alum, part time lecturer and Jew, I find the chanting of “intifada, intifada!” disgusting in the wake of the barbaric terror attacks in #israel and Hamas call for violence against Jews globally. This is happening now at UCLA,” wrote Ariel Jalali, who posted the video to Twitter.

An open letter circulated throughout the University of California system, signed by graduate students and professors alike, proclaims: “To blame anyone other than the Zionist Israeli government and its settlers mischaracterizes this struggle and fuels the ongoing violence. Although international law states that Palestians’ have the right to defend themselves in their ancestral homelands, it is evident these rights only apply to some.”

The extremist delusions of radical leftists in institutions of higher learning present a serious problem for America.

If these are the sort of ideas taking root among the highly “educated,” this does not bode well for the future of our nation.

Radical leftists seek only the destruction of civilization. They reject common sense, like the common sense notion that Hamas was wrong to butcher innocent men, women and children.

These apologists for terrorism must be denounced and repudiated at every opportunity.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams in a RB pinch after injuries to Kyren Williams, Ronnie Rivers

• October 19, 2023

THOUSAND OAKS — Just as the Rams seemed to have unlocked their running game, bad news came in two parts on Wednesday.

Backup Ronnie Rivers was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury, sidelining him for a minimum of four games. Not great for the Rams’ depth, but not calamitous in a vacuum.

But it was paired with the news that starter Kyren Williams, coming off a career-high 158-yard performance in Sunday’s victory over Arizona, will miss this coming weekend’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers with a sprained left ankle.

Williams’ return timeline is unknown, with Coach Sean McVay stating that an IR trip remains a consideration. At practice Wednesday, Williams had a cast up to his knee on his left leg and was moving around on a scooter.

After Sunday’s win, McVay confidently said that Williams would not miss any time, but further tests revealed the extent of his injury.

“It shows you what a tough dude he is,” McVay said. “He was walking around, had the adrenaline. The way that his immediate checkup went right afterwards were not in alignment with what the scans ended up revealing with the severity of the ankle sprain. It’s unfortunate, but he’s a fast healer, he says, and he’s a resilient guy.”

In the meantime, the Rams made moves to make up for the dearth of running back depth. They signed Royce Freeman from the practice squad to the active roster, signed Myles Gaskin to the active roster and added Darrell Henderson to the practice squad.

Gaskin is a new entity for the Rams, but Henderson was a third-round pick by the franchise in 2019 and rushed 70 times for 283 yards in 2022 before being a mid-season cut. McVay said Henderson’s familiarity played a big role in his addition.

“I’ve always really loved working with Darrell. Smart, conscientious,” McVay said. “When he’s played, he’s been really productive. … He has an understanding, and a nuanced understanding, of what we’re doing.”

But, on the outside looking in, the logical candidate to take over the majority of the backfield work is rookie Zach Evans.

Evans, a sixth-round pick out of Mississippi, rushed four times for 10 yards in the fourth quarter against the Cardinals after Williams and Rivers left the game. But McVay did not commit to him as the starter this coming weekend.

“We’ve got the week to be able to evaluate and I would say all four of those guys are possibilities and we’re truly navigating through that,” McVay said. “But I was pleased with what Zach did toward the latter part of the game.”

Right tackle Rob Havenstein spoke on Monday about how hard Evans has worked in practices, saying that McVay singled him out for his work with the scout team and told him he’d be ready when he got his shot.

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McVay remembered it was offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur who gave that vote of confidence, but he seconded the sentiments.

“I certainly have seen the same things,” McVay said. “Whether it be scout team or being locked in in the walk-throughs, just being intentional about getting better. How do I approach my craft every single day, whether it be running our plays or running the opposing team’s plays?”

As for this week, Evans isn’t trying to change his approach even with the possibility of an increased role in front of him.

“I’m approaching it the same way I do every week, just being whatever the team needs me to be,” Evans said. “Just keep preparing every day like I can.”

​ Orange County Register 

Laguna Hills man arrested in shooting of Nellie Gail Ranch security guard

• October 19, 2023

A 32-year-old Laguna Hills man was arrested Tuesday in the shooting of a security guard in the neighborhood of Nellie Gail Ranch.

The shooting was reported just after 11 a.m. Tuesday in the area of Bridlewood Drive and Saddlerock Place in Laguna Hills, where an on-duty security guard was found parked in his security vehicle suffering from gunshot wounds to his upper torso.

The security guard was hospitalized and remained in critical condition Wednesday, said Orange County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Woodroof.

Deputies surrounded the home of the suspect, Matthew Luke Pickens, who surrendered peacefully, according to authorities. The 32-year-old man was arrested and booked on suspicion of attempted murder.

Authorities also seized multiple weapons from Pickens’ residence and vehicle. The weapons will be analyzed to determine if any were used in the shooting, the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

Further information on the circumstances of the shooting and the motive, if known, was not immediately disclosed by authorities.

The security guard is an employee of 24-Hour Mobile Patrol and was the only on-duty security officer at the time of the shooting, according to Brian Mitchell, general manager of the Nellie Gail Ranch Homeowner’s Association.

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​ Orange County Register 

House of Ruth ready in Tustin to be a home for unhoused families

• October 19, 2023

Another option for unhoused families struggling to find a place to live is opening in Tustin, turning an empty lot on El Camino Real into a community resource.

The House of Ruth features seven furnished units — they vary in size from one bedroom to three bedrooms — for families who will also have access at the complex to resources that will help them find permanent housing they can afford. Its grand opening was celebrated Wednesday, Oct. 18.

Family Promise of Orange County will operate the shelter — each unit also has its own kitchen and living room — and was donated the property by the city of Tustin.

HomeAid Orange County, a nonprofit arm of the Building Industry Association, partnered on the project and helped bring on Brookfield Residential, which is a national homebuilder that donated its time and resources to build the two-story complex.

HomeAid Orange County has spent 35 years helping develop shelters and affordable housing and has done more than 70 projects in Orange County.

“This is our gift to our community,” said Executive Director Gina Cunningham, “being able to bring in the resources through homebuilders, like Brookfield Residential, to develop housing for people experiencing homelessness.”

Local churches also helped with fundraising for the project, including Tustin Presbyterian Church, Aldersgate United Methodist in Tustin, Irvine United Congregational Church and St. John’s Lutheran Church of Orange.

Families will be able to stay for up to a year at House of the Ruth while, Cunningham said, “coming out of homelessness and finding their way back home through being housed.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Aliso Viejo man convicted of killing former friend in Santa Ana shooting

• October 19, 2023

An Aliso Viejo man who shot and killed a former close friend, who the gunman apparently believed had sexually assaulted his longtime girlfriend, was convicted Wednesday of first degree murder.

An Orange County Superior Court jury also found Carlos Alexander Gonzalez, 26, guilty of shooting into an occupied vehicle and the use of a handgun in the May 19, 2018 slaying of 20-year-old Bryan Steubing Jr.

Both the prosecution and defense agreed that Gonzalez, then 20, shot Steubing to death, and that it was an unlawful killing. But jurors were left to decide whether the killing was a premeditated murder, as the prosecution argued, or a slaying carried out in the heat of passion and therefore a lesser charge of manslaughter, as the defense countered.

Gonzalez and Steubing were in the same social circle, according to a prosecution trial brief, but had a falling out several months before the shooting after Gonzalez accused Steubing of raping Gonzalez’s longtime girlfriend.

It isn’t clear if a sexual assault actually occurred, with Steubing apparently contending the sexual activity between he and Gonzalez’s girlfriend was consensual, according to the court filing. Others in their group of friends didn’t appear to believe the allegations.

Weeks before the shooting, Gonzalez attacked and stabbed Steubing, according to testimony. And in messages exchanged among their group of friends on social media, Gonzalez wrote that Steubing “didn’t deserve to breathe,” adding he would “hit him where it hurts.”

Steubing was sitting in his parked car in the early morning hours at an industrial strip mall in the 3100 block of South Main Street when Gonzalez shot him. A man who was sitting in the passenger seat of Steubing’s vehicle was apparently not hit by the gunfire.

A friend of Gonzalez’s girlfriend told police that the girlfriend texted her the morning of the shooting and asked to be picked up at an apartment complex across from the crime scene, but said when they arrived it was Gonzalez — wearing a dark hoodie and armed with a handgun — who jumped into the car. Gonzalez indicated he had “shot the kid who messed” with his girlfriend, according to the trial brief.

Gonzalez is scheduled to return to a Santa Ana courtroom for sentencing on Jan. 19. He faces up to 50 years to life in prison.

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​ Orange County Register 

NLCS: Can the Diamondbacks slow homer-happy Phillies in Game 3?

• October 19, 2023

By DAVID BRANDT AP Baseball Writer

PHOENIX — Arizona’s Brandon Pfaadt had some good moments on the mound during the regular season, but he struggled to contain the long ball, giving up 22 homers in just 96 innings.

Now the Diamondbacks turn to the rookie right-hander for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in an effort to slow the homer-happy Philadelphia Phillies, who have built a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven playoff thanks to six homers.

If that doesn’t sound ideal for the D-backs, well, it’s not.

“Yesterday was a really frustrating outcome,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said Wednesday, a day after Philadelphia’s 10-0 rout at Citizens Bank Park. “We didn’t perform up to our capabilities, didn’t meet our expectations. We’ve got to find a way to get this turned around.

“Our mindset is one well-played game could lead to one win and we’re right back in the series.”

The two-game deficit is the first adversity the surprising D-backs have experienced this October. They were just 84-78 in the regular season, earning the last NL spot as the No. 6 seed, but they won their first five games of this postseason while sweeping Milwaukee in a best-of-three Wild Card Series and the second-seeded Dodgers in a best-of-five NL Division Series.

That success came to a screeching halt in Philadelphia. Kyle Schwarber has three homers in the series, including a pair in Game 2, while Bryce Harper, Nick Castellanos and Trea Turner have also gone deep.

“They’re a hot team. We knew they were a hot team,” Lovullo said. “They’re built to slug.”

The good news for the D-backs is that Pfaadt is coming off one of his best outings this year. The 25-year-old threw 4⅓ scoreless innings in Game 3 of the NLDS, helping Arizona complete a sweep of the 100-win Dodgers and a lineup that included former MVPs Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.

The difference is the Dodgers were scuffling. The Phillies, most certainly, are not.

Pfaadt hopes a change of scenery to the desert can help the D-backs.

“We went through Milwaukee’s lineup. We went through the Dodgers’ lineup,” Pfaadt said. “I think we can hold our own. If we show that, coming into our ballpark, limiting damage, getting the momentum on our side, I think we can come out on the strong end.”

Lovullo has said that even if Pfaadt is pitching well in Game 3, he’ll likely face 18 to 22 batters. The D-backs used that strategy with Pfaadt against the Dodgers, yanking him at the first hint of trouble, and it led to the series-clinching 4-2 victory.

“It’s about going out, landing pitches, and not placing the ball in the nitro zones,” Lovullo said.

Arizona had just four hits in each of the first two games for a .129 batting average. The defense has not been crisp; three fielders let a short pop-up fall for a base hit in the seventh inning of Game 2.

Lovullo said the D-backs need the synergy from offense, defense and pitching to recover.

“Grinding out at-bats, having mature at-bats, driving up pitch counts, catching popups, picking up the baseball,” Lovullo said. “You know, the pitching and defense goes hand in hand, and we find a way to score five runs or more and win a baseball game by just being a really smart, stubborn baseball team in all areas.”

Arizona weathered a 7-25 stretch in July and August that knocked the Diamondbacks out of the NL West lead, and the team recovered to reach the NLCS for the first time since 2007.

“We’ve been playing meaningful baseball games for about the past 45 days,” Lovullo said. “So we’re battle-tested from an emotional standpoint. We know that one quick turn, one quick moment, can turn the tide.”

Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Brandon Pfaadt throws to the plate during the fourth inning of Game 3 of their NL Division Series against the Dodgers on Wednesday night in Phoenix. Pfaadt will start Game 3 of the NL Championship Series on Thursday night with his team trailing the Phillies 2-0 in the best-of-seven series. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

​ Orange County Register