The recovery journey began just as the Dodgers envisioned.
With Shohei Ohtani’s critical home-run swing.
One inning into their postseason opener Saturday night, the Dodgers were having nightmare flashbacks to this time last year, facing another early deficit after another poor performance from their Game 1 opener.
The 53,028 waving fans at Dodger Stadium fell silent. In the visiting dugout, the San Diego Padres were suddenly riding the momentum.
But after the Dodgers’ losing streak in recent years, Ohtani came into the series and promptly wiped the slate clean in his first career playoff game.
“We didn’t expect anything less than that,” outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “He’s the guy who’s guiding us through all of this.”
Actually, on the Dodgers 7-5 win In the National League Division Series opener this year, Ohtani’s three-run homer in the second inning did more than erase the club’s early three-run deficit.
It restored confidence in the Dodgers’ dugout. It reinvigorated the crowd of disillusioned vendors around them.
And, entering Game 2 of the best-of-five series at Chavez Ravine on Sunday night, the Dodgers have exorcised some old October demons that they’re beginning to creep back into.
“He was an absolute lightning bolt in the stadium,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “From then on, it was like, ‘Okay, here we have it. It’s not like years past.’
Reversing the failures of past postseasons has, of course, been the defining theme of this year’s Dodgers postseason, as they entered Saturday night looking to make amends for recent playoff history.
Two years ago, an upset NLDS elimination at the hands of these same Padres renewed questions about the Dodgers’ inability to translate regular-season dominance into playoff success.
The Dodgers won the National League Division Series opener 7-5 when Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run home run to tie the game. And six scoreless innings from the Dodgers bullpen kept the lead intact.
Those frustrations increased last season when they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“That kind of sour taste you have when you get out of the postseason early, our guys are tired,” manager Dave Roberts said earlier this week. “A lot of people definitely doubted us, so I think our guys accepted that.”
That didn’t stop him from starting Saturday’s game with another disastrous first inning, rivaling the six that Clayton Kershaw surrendered to an injury last year against Arizona.
In his MLB playoff debut, Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out five in three innings. The first three of them walked Fernando Tadis Jr. in an at-bat when he gave up a leadoff single to Luis Ares in a $325 million offseason deal (which Roberts believed may have been tipping his pitches). That included a passed ball and a wild pitch, then allowed Manny Machado to deliver a potential back-breaker, hooking a splitter that left Machado for a two-run homer and a 3-0 Padres lead.
“They jumped on us, punched us in the mouth, whatever you want to call it,” catcher Will Smith said. “But we know we’re not out of it.”
Ohtani no longer leads their lineup.
Smith led off the second inning with a walk, and Gavin Lucks followed with a single, and when he came to the plate against starter Dylan Seas with two outs, Ohtani had no choice but to pitch.
Seas tried to start the at-bat cautiously, throwing the first two pitches well outside the zone before Ohtani blocked a fastball off his knee. When Ohtani dug back in, Cheese challenged him with a high heater, just as Ohtani’s first at-bat induced a flyout.
But this time, the soon-to-be three-time MVP is up for it.
Ohtani easily cleared the fence in front of the right-field pavilion with a line-drive rocket that traveled 372 feet at nearly 112 mph, tying the score at 3-3 with a game-changing swing.
“It got the momentum back for us,” Roberts said. “And gave us life.”
The Dodgers wouldn’t take their first lead until the fourth inning, when a three-run rally led by Hernandez’s two-run single erased a 5-3 deficit.
He was able to turn the game over to the bullpen from there, pitching six shutout innings of relief while adding an insurance run after an inadvertent Machado throwing error in the fifth.
But without Ohtani’s early outburst, there would have been no mid-game plot twist.
After consecutive postseasons in which the Dodgers have failed to fight back from similar playoff deficits, their $700 million offseason signing confirmed Saturday will be different.
Teoscar Hernandez ran to first base after hitting a two-run single in the fourth inning for the Dodgers on Saturday.
(Gina Ferrazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“I could really feel the intensity on the field before the game even started,” Otnoy said of his MLB playoff debut through interpreter Will Ireton. “I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Ohtani isn’t the only source of inspiration for the Dodgers’ success.
Freddie Freeman not only played through a badly sprained ankle — he thought he’d miss the game until Saturday morning — but delivered two hits and a surprise stolen base.
“It definitely sends a message, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter what your name is, it doesn’t matter who you are, you’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes,'” Muncy said of Freeman. “It’s huge. It’s hard to put it into words to see Freddie out there for us and know how badly he’s hurting.
The bullpen’s performance also rose after Yamamoto’s early exit, right-hander Blake Treinen’s five-out, 39-pitch save that Machado ended with a swing-and-miss sweeper.
“To fight back speaks to the character of this team,” Roberts said. “We have to fight. That’s what we did tonight.
There have been other examples of the kind of resilience that has often been missing from the Dodgers’ postseason.
The three-run fourth-inning rally that included Hernandez’s go-ahead two-run single? It was sparked by a bunt single by Tommy Edman and included a broken-bat hit by Ohtani, who went five for the night with three RBIs and two runs scored.
Trienen’s high-wire save in which he stranded five total baserunners? It was helped by an over-the-shoulder catch by shortstop Miguel Rojas in the eighth and a diving snag by Lux in the ninth.
“I think that speaks volumes about this team,” Rojas said. “The fire and fight of this team is incredible.”
To truly rectify their annual October woes and add another World Series title to their pandemic-shortened 2020 championship, the Dodgers will need more consistent performance — especially from their starting rotation, which will turn to Jack Flaherty for Game 2 on Sunday.
But the biggest question entering this season is whether a team that has folded so easily in past seasons can muster the determination and intensity to be legitimate contenders this year.
After the first innings Saturday, the script looked ominous.
But then, Ohtani turned it around, and this month’s potential recovery tour began with a character-defining victory.
“Our guys were relentless all night,” Roberts said. “It’s hard not to panic when you’re behind, especially in a postseason game. But we tried to take it one at-bat at a time.
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