PHILADELPHIA — Teoscar Hernández wouldn’t stop screaming at the top of his lungs.
The Dodgers’ outfielder, moments removed from hammering a go-ahead, game-winning big fly, bounded down the visitors dugout at Citizens Bank Park through a tunnel of coaches and teammates, a revelrous procession shaded blue. They showered him with sunflower seeds, a post-homer team tradition that Hernández himself inaugurated. And as he worked his way through the congratulatory receiving line, he yelled and yelled and yelled.
To nobody in particular and to everyone in the building.
Before his game-altering, seventh-inning swing in Game 1 of the NLDS, Hernández was having quite the difficult night at the plate Saturday — three trips to the dish, three strikeouts against Phillies starter Cristopher Sánchez. The lanky southpaw worked Hernández at the bottom rail of the strike zone and below it, conjuring six swing-and-misses from Los Angeles’ No. 3 hitter. But a string of hits in the sixth hooked Sánchez from the ballgame, setting up a showdown one inning later between Hernández and left-handed reliever Matt Strahm, with the Dodgers trailing 3-2.
And with two down and two on, Strahm made a critical mistake. The intended target for his fastball was inside, under Hernández’s hands. Instead, Strahm’s heater leaked over the heart of the plate. That allowed the 32-year-old outfielder to get his arms extended and drive a ball deep and gone to right-center field for his third long ball of this nascent postseason.
“Yeah, at the end of the day, for me, anything that happened before a big moment like that, it’s in the past,” Hernández said after the game. “I try to put it in the trash and just focus on the things that I need to do in that at-bat.”
Hernández’s blast completed an impressive, three-run comeback for the Dodgers, who knocked off the hosting Phillies 5-3 in Game 1. Philadelphia pounced on L.A. starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani, making the first postseason outing of his comically accomplished career, for three runs in the second inning. J.T. Realmuto’s opposite-field triple plated the first two, sending Citizens Bank Park into a pandemonium.
But then Ohtani, who threw 15 four-seam fastballs 99 mph or faster, got himself and his night back on the rails. He kept the score close through the middle innings, carving through the Phillies’ lineup like a machete through jello. He was particularly effective against the top of the order; Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper were a collective 0-for-9 with five strikeouts against him. Vitally, Ohtani was efficient, a blessing for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose bullpen has become the club’s glaring Achilles’ heel.
“I use the word compartmentalize a lot. But this epitomizes compartmentalizing,” Roberts said of Ohtani after the win. “He’s essentially two people in one night, in one game. To look at the at-bats that he took tonight and how he struggled offensively, but to separate that and just be a pitcher and weather that inning and to go out there and give us six innings, keep us in the ballgame … I just don’t know any human that can manage that, those emotions, and how do you not take that to the mound?
“So, yeah, we continue to just witness history.”
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Ohtani’s dominance also created an opening for L.A.’s fearsome and experienced lineup to crawl back into the ballgame. In the sixth inning, Kiké Hernández stroked a two-run double down the left-field line to trim the deficit to one and chase Sánchez. In came 40-year-old reliever David Robertson, whom the Phillies signed in the middle of the season for bullpen depth. As the summer inched along, the wily Alabaman slowly emerged as a trusted, late-inning option for skipper Rob Thomson.
Robertson escaped the sixth with no damage but made a mess when he returned for the seventh, surrendering a hit to eight-hole hitter Andy Pages before plunking catcher Will Smith, who entered as a replacement. That prompted Thomson to call upon Strahm, who retired Ohtani and Betts before serving up the lead to Hernández on a silver platter.
“He likes to go up in the strike zone. I think that’s when he’s stronger,” Hernández told reporters after the game. “My first three at-bats, I chased a lot of down. Not trying to do overswinging or anything like that. Maybe a hit. Try to bring in one run to tie the game — but he left it over the strike zone.”
That tipping of the scales quickened the end of Ohtani’s evening on the mound. Roberts elected to have Tyler Glasnow, making his first playoff appearance as a reliever, start the seventh. The long-haired righty worked a 1-2-3 inning but waded into trouble the next frame, loading the bases with two outs. Out came Roberts, who summoned southpaw Alex Vesia from the bullpen. Thomson responded with a pinch-hitter, Edmundo Sosa, who lazily flied out to center to end the threat.
That was the only out recorded all night by an actual Dodgers reliever. The ninth belonged to Roki Sasaki, the über-hyped, 23-year-old wunderkind who commanded headlines last winter when he signed with the Dodgers in free agency. But Sasaki’s first taste of stateside baseball was sour. He struggled with injuries and a velocity drop-off for most of the year, spending ample time on the IL and at the club’s complex in Arizona trying to rediscover his heat. Only during the final week of the season did he pop his large melon back up to the bigs, showcasing his postseason potential with two brilliant outings out of the bullpen.
Sasaki was similarly impactful Saturday, working a scoreless, relatively stress-free ninth to earn his first career save.
Hernández, a sunflower seed caught in his scraggly beard and a massive grin pasted on his face, was the first Dodger to hop out of the dugout upon the final out. It was an odd year for the big-smiling Dominican, who re-signed with the Dodgers last winter after being a core component of their World Series-winning club. This season, he struggled to find consistency, trudging through long stretches of underperformance. His numbers against left-handed pitchers, whom Hernández had scorched for most of his career, were particularly concerning.
But those around the Dodgers remained insistent that when the weather got chillier and the games got important, Hernández would be there. That was true in the club’s wild-card sweep of the Reds, in which Teoscar clapped two homers. And it was true Saturday, in the biggest game of this team’s season thus far.
That’s why he can yell all he wants.
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