Kiké's 14th playoff HR shows why Dodgers sought reunion

LOS ANGELES -- The nickname Mr. October is already taken. But Kiké Hernández has similarly proved himself to be a force that opposing teams do not want to reckon with under the bright lights of the postseason.

Hernández played an instrumental role in sending the Dodgers to their first National League Championship Series since 2021, hitting a solo homer in the second inning that would stand as the winning run in Friday night's 2-0 victory over the Padres.

With his team's season on the line in Game 5 of the NL Division Series, Hernández stepped in for his first at-bat against San Diego starter Yu Darvish and launched a first-pitch fastball to the left-field pavilion.

If it feels like Hernández always finds a way to come up big in the postseason, that's because he typically does: His 13.43 at-bats per home run is the fifth best in postseason history among players with a minimum of 150 plate appearances. Here's who ranks ahead of him:

Nelson Cruz: 10.39 AB/HR
Kyle Schwarber: 10.86 AB/HR
Bryce Harper: 11.35 AB/HR
Mickey Mantle: 12.78 AB/HR

"We're in Los Angeles. Some of the greatest athletes of all time. And those great ones aren't afraid to fail," manager Dave Roberts said. "When you talk about the postseason in whatever sport, you can't be afraid to fail. And this guy always rises to the occasion. That was sort of the bet that Andrew [Friedman], [Brandon Gomes], myself had to acquire Kiké.

"The reason we got him this year was to win 11 games in October."

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Hernández tends to dial things up a notch when he's in the spotlight. In his regular-season career, his at-bats per home run ratio drops to 29.1. More than a quarter of his postseason hits are homers, whereas the long ball accounts for just 14.5% of his knocks in the regular season. His 14 homers in the postseason -- though not all of them came with L.A. -- are the most of any active Dodger.

There's a reason Hernández seems preternaturally collected during these moments: He's already lived through them in his head.

It all dates back to Hernández's first postseason in 2015. He recalled a frustrating at-bat in Game 5 of that year's NLDS, when he grounded into a double play early in the game. The Dodgers went on to lose by one run, and their season ended.

Two years later, Hernández decided he needed to overhaul his mental approach. He began visualizing every scenario he could imagine leading into big games, drawing on his prior experience to prepare himself as thoroughly as possible.

The first night Hernández decided to do that, he said, was before Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS. He hit three homers and drove in seven runs the next day, and the rest is history.

Heading into Game 5 against the Padres, Hernández's expectations were even loftier than what played out on the field. He had envisioned himself matching the feat accomplished by the Mets' Francisco Lindor days earlier: launching a grand slam to help his team advance in emphatic fashion.

He settled for driving in the winning run.

"It's very easy for you to see yourself failing in the postseason," Hernández said. "And the anxiety, the self-doubt, all these things start creeping in your mind. … That's where visualization comes into play. Whenever those thoughts come in, I visualize myself having success over and over again.

"You get to the field the next day, and you have already seen the day happen. So nothing overwhelms you, no moment gets too big."

Hernández did not get a start in this year's NLDS until Game 4, when lingering injuries to both Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas forced Roberts to shuffle his lineup. He's 3-for-7 in his two starts and has fielded his position well at both third base and center field.

It's no doubt a blow to the Dodgers that Freeman and Rojas are essentially questionable for every game moving forward as they manage their injuries. But when their absences create room in the lineup, opponents beware: Hernández lives for meeting the moment in October.

"In the bigger games, he’s always going to show up," Gavin Lux said. "He’s got that look in his eyes that he’s going to do something big, and this team feeds off of that.”