Dodgers silence Padres, doubters to reach NLCS

LOS ANGELES -- As the Dodgers faced elimination in Game 4 of the National League Division Series, Kiké Hernández felt he needed to share a message. Hernández, who has never been shy of speaking up during hitters' meetings, wanted to keep this one short and simple.

“You want me to keep it short?” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy asked with a smile, when asked to recount Hernández’s speech. “‘[Forget] them all.’ I hope that works for you.”

It definitely worked for the Dodgers, who were sick of hearing it. Since the start of Spring Training, they have been answering questions about postseason failures of the past, which have included early exits the last two Octobers.

Changing the narrative is what drove the Dodgers over the last six months. They came into Friday’s game with a chance to do just that. They weren’t going to let this opportunity go to waste. This time, it was different.

With a 2-0 win over the Padres in Game 5 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers advanced to the NL Championship Series for the first time since 2021 and moved to eight wins away from their ultimate goal.

They next face the Mets, with NLCS Game 1 scheduled for Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

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“We talked about this series. It was going to test us, and we fought,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “We didn’t relent, not one time, and I just couldn't be more excited for this ballclub.”

The series between the two division rivals lived up to the hype. It was a five-game thriller between two of the best teams in the sport, who don’t particularly like each other. Both teams continuously said they wanted to throw the hardest punch. It was the Dodgers that delivered the knockout on Friday.

Two days after that pre-Game 4 speech, it was Hernández again who jump-started the Dodgers, this time with his bat, as his two-out blast in the second inning off right-hander Yu Darvish opened up the scoring. For Hernández, it was the 14th postseason homer of his career. In the seventh, Teoscar Hernández added a solo homer of his own off Darvish.

“Inside those doors, inside those walls, we don’t really care,” Kiké said. “And that’s where, like, not giving a damn comes into play of, ‘I don’t care what anybody says, I don’t care what it looks like, we’re all in this together.’ We believe in each other and we’re going to do whatever it takes to win a ballgame.”

Those two homers were enough for the Dodgers to win a ballgame, largely because of another dominant pitching performance. Making the biggest start of his life, Yoshinobu Yamamoto responded, tossing five scoreless innings and not running into much trouble. The lone time the Padres got anything going against Yamamoto, the Japanese right-hander defused it by inducing an inning-ending double play against Fernando Tatis Jr.

Once Yamamoto set the tone, the Dodgers’ bullpen shut things down, with Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen combining to close out the win. With Friday’s shutout, the Dodgers finished off the NLDS by tossing 24 consecutive scoreless innings against one of the best offenses in baseball.

“I can’t say enough about this team,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “Twenty-four consecutive scoreless innings. … Our ’pen, they were all incredible. We knew that was a strength of ours coming into the series, but to watch it shine the way it did speaks to not only how talented they are, but what a great culture and environment [bullpen coach] Josh Bard and those guys have created down there. Incredible team effort.”

Team efforts are what the Dodgers’ season has been all about. Sure, having superstars like Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman definitely helps. But as the Dodgers navigated through a flurry of injuries this season, they consistently required others to step up as well.

Tyler Glasnow, Gavin Stone, Clayton Kershaw and Yamamoto -- four key pieces of the rotation -- each missed significant time with injuries, with three of them not being able to make it back for the remainder of the season. Walker Buehler was also forced to miss time twice this season.

On the offensive side, Freeman missed two weeks late in the season as he attended to the health of his son. Betts and Muncy also missed months with injuries. As the blows piled up throughout the season, it would have been easy for the Dodgers to believe this wasn’t going to be their year. But through it all, L.A. stuck through it and finished with the best record in the Majors.

“I haven’t been a part of as much adversity as this ballclub has had,” Roberts said. “And not one time have we made an excuse or given ourselves an out to not win 11 games in October. And that’s a credit to the character of the guys, the coaches, the front office, getting a lot of depth that we’ve had to tap into. I’ve never believed in a group of guys more than this group. I really haven’t.”

Though the Dodgers celebrated hard on Friday, they know this isn’t the end of the road. Before Game 5, the message on the video board inside the clubhouse was a quote from Lakers legend Kobe Bryant that has resonated with this city for years.

“Job’s not finished,” the board read.

But in the series that the entire baseball world wanted to see, it was the Dodgers who came out on top.

“I think we’re all sick of it. We want to change the narrative,” said Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux. “This group is a team that has a lot of grit, competitiveness and we want to win. We dealt with a lot of adversity through injuries, and guys had to step up all season. I think ultimately, that made us a better team.”