ATLANTA - Baseball's biggest payroll couldn't buy the Los Angeles Dodgers another championship.
Certainly not with so many high-priced expenditures stuck on the bench when it mattered most.
The 2020 World Series champions couldn't pull off a repeat. Saturday night's 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series ended the Dodgers' streak of seven consecutive postseason wins in elimination games.
Ace right-hander Max Scherzer watched helplessly from the dugout, unable to go in Game 6 as planned because of lingering fatigue in his powerful pitching arm. Starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw, first baseman Max Muncy and third baseman Justin Turner were also spectators due to injuries, a combined 12 All-Star Games between them.
When elimination came for the Dodgers, who won 106 games in the regular season, it was especially painful. High expectations come with splashy spending. That included hope the roster had enough depth to overcome injuries that might have overwhelmed lesser teams.
"I've said it before, I know we have a high payroll, but that's what you get when you pay for players," second baseman Trea Turner said before Saturday's game. "You get talent. You get a lot of depth."
Scherzer, a candidate to win his fourth Cy Young Award, was expected to be the foundation of the postseason rotation. Instead, he started Game 2 of the NLCS on just two days' rest after a 13-pitch save in the clincher of the NL Division Series against the San Francisco Giants, who had won the NL West Division title with one more victory than Los Angeles. His arm never recovered.
The second guessing of manager Dave Roberts' decision to use Scherzer as a closer could continue through the offseason. Roberts second guessed himself on that call after Saturday night's game.
"Well, in retrospect and if you could guarantee that we could win Game 5 with someone else, I would have used someone else different," Roberts said of the deciding game in the NLDS.
"I just think in the moment, talking to coaches, staff, and in particular Max, and having done that, and a veteran player who I trust, there's a point that you've just got to trust the player, and I trusted Max."
Roberts added the strategy "just didn't work out" and said "we were kind of behind it and fighting an uphill battle this entire series."
The wild-card Dodgers hoped Scherzer would be ready to start a Game 7 on Sunday. Instead, it's not clear where the imminent free agent will make his next appearance.
The payroll, which reached $261 million, couldn't overcome repeated hits to the rotation. Trevor Bauer, Dustin May and Kershaw began the season in the rotation but didn't make it to the team's fifth NLCS in a six-year stretch. May and Kershaw were injured, and Bauer has been on paid administrative leave since July 2 under MLB's joint domestic violence and sexual assault policy.
Instead, from the rotation that opened the season, only Walker Buehler and Julio Urías survived to the end. The patchwork rotation became an even greater liability when Roberts used Scherzer - a mid-year acquisition from the Washington Nationals - and Urías in October relief roles.
There were also hits to the lineup, which lost Muncy to a dislocated left elbow at the end of the regular season and Turner to a hamstring injury in Game 5 against the Braves.
Chris Taylor, who took over for Turner at third base, said playing without Muncy for the postseason was "obviously a huge loss." Taylor noted that the Braves were without star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr.
"I don't think we can use that as an excuse," Taylor said. "Every team is going to have injuries over the course of a season and postseason."
The disappointing end is hardly unfamiliar. The Dodgers experienced seven straight October failures - including consecutive defeats in the 2017-18 World Series - before finally earning their first championship since 1988 last year in a Fall Classic played at a neutral site.
When they finally broke through, the 2020 Dodgers felt cheated by the coronavirus pandemic. No buzzing sellouts at Dodger Stadium, no parade, hardly any of the pomp that usually accompanies such a feat. It became a source of motivation that - along with a heaping load of talent - was supposed to push them back up the mountain this year.
"In some ways, we feel like we kind of half won the thing," Buehler said this spring of the 2020 title.
The Dodgers hoped to celebrate again, this time with their fans. They showed sufficient resiliency to survive elimination Thursday in Los Angeles, hitting five homers, including three by Taylor, in an 11-2 win in Game 5.
With Buehler pitching on three days of rest for the second time in the postseason, the NLCS comeback ended. Buehler gave up four runs in four innings in Game 6, leaving his ERA for the series at 7.04.
Roberts said Saturday that Scherzer and Buehler "are both aces." With one top starter forced to pitch on short rest and the other sidelined with a dead arm, the aces were in no position to save the Dodgers' season.