Desperate Dodgers call on a familiar bat
They win the Division Series as Hernandez strikes again
Baseball has always provided a treaty between fathers and sons. For instance, generations have now watched Kiké Hernandez announce himself in October.
Youngsters won’t have to wait for Grandpa to tell those tales. They can see for themselves. Hernandez has done this since 2017 and isn’t planning to stop. The regular season is just calisthenics for Hernandez, who can play seven positions competently but only hits in bursts, although they’re conveniently-timed bursts. He stroked a home run off San Diego’s Yu Darvish Friday night, his 14th in postseason in 75 games. During the 162-game grind, he has 120 in 1,183 games.
Since the Dodgers are arranging their pitching these days with the apprehension of a land mine detector, Hernandez’s home run dissipated a marine layer of dread. Dodger playoff losses are no longer October surprises. Much more solid Dodger teams than this one have run aground. Amid the postgame noise, Hernandez said he didn’t recall the Dodgers winning a playoff series at home. They did beat Milwaukee in the two-of-three first-round in 2020, and in 2021 they won a one-game wild-card playoff over the Cardinals, managed by Mike Schildt, as were the Padres on Friday. But he’s right for the most part, and you don’t want to argue such things with the author of so much playoff history. They won this one, 2-0, and took the Division Series in five contentious games.
Hernandez was also asked to identify the distinguishing characteristic of these particular Dodgers. He smiled and asked Fox’s Ken Rosenthal if the interview was live, which it was, and then said, “We don’t give a fuck.”
Translated, Hernandez is channeling Robert Horry, the Lakers’ side man who was always there to hit game-winners in the playoffs. Before the Dodgers got into the 2017 playoffs, Hernandez tried to visualize himself in the batter’s box, in tight situations. He realized there were only two outcomes, so there was no reason to worry. Swing without inhibition. Don’t fear failure, Horry used to say the same thing and so did Justin Williams, who became known as Mr. Game 7 when the L.A. Kings won two Stanley Cups.
It’s true. When Aaron Judge or Mookie Betts or Kyle Schwarber doesn’t find the fences in the playoffs, there’s a major autopsy. Hernandez doesn’t have that kind of pressure. Yet perhaps he should. In the clinching NLCS game in Chicago seven years ago, Hernandez hit three home runs, including a grand slam. “My goal,” he said that night, “is to do enough to get a hangover tonight, then sleep it off on the flight home.”
In 2021 Hernandez hit five playoff home runs for the Red Sox and helped them eliminate the Rays. In 2020, on the way to the Dodgers’ World Series title, Hernandez tied Game 7 against the Braves with a home run, after Atlanta had led, 3-1. Cody Bellinger won it with a homer, the next inning, and Bellinger’s shoulder popped out when he and Hernandez tried a Bash Brothers-style congratulation.
But it’s not just the home runs. Hernandez now has an career OPS of .899 in the playoffs. It’s .713 in the regular season. He started in centerfield Thursday, then came to third base in a lineup shuffle when Freddie Freeman and his bad ankle were removed from first base. Two of San Diego’s three outs in the ninth were hard grounders that disappeared into Hernandez’s purple glove.
Hernandez homered in the second inning. In the seventh, the Dodgers still had their 1-0 lead, and Darvish was still in the game, and Teoscar Hernandez walloped another home run into the leftfield pavilion. Hernandez is another unapologetic deep swinger who whacked 33 home runs with 99 RBI this year after he signed as a one-year free agent, and a lot of those bombs were significant. In June he had four BLT hits (Broke The Last Tie) in a 12-game span, including the home run against Colorado that finished a seven-run rally in the ninth.
That’s all Darvish gave up, on a night when he got 20 outs and gave up three hits. Surely that would be enough to outpitch the Dodgers, who supply America’s orthopedic surgeon with a fresh can of pitchers on a regular basis. But L.A. held the Padres without a run for 24 innings, which shouldn’t happen with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill on the lineup card. Maybe they gave too much of a bleep.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto handled the first five innings, followed by Evan Phillips for five outs, Alex Vesia for one (before he had to leave with an injury), Michael Kopech for three and then Blake Treinen for the final three. Treinen said afterward that he’d flown home to Walla Walla, Wash. on Wednesday to be with his wife Kali as she gave birth to twins. He’s 36, and he missed much of 2022 and all of 2023 with labrum reconstruction. But in three different seasons Treinen has had a WHIP under 1.000, which is outstanding.
The National League Championship Series begins in L.A. Sunday. The Dodgers have no identifiable closer and only Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty are viable starters, although Walker Buehler might be getting there. The Mets fly west on a magic carpet of belief. But the Dodgers still have three MVP winners at the top of the batting order. As long as you take charge of the remote whenever Kiké Hernandez nears a microphone, it should be fun for the whole family.