Blake Treinen threw his palms within the sky. His teammates poured out of the dugout and swallowed him up close to the mound.
Round them, the collective pressure of 53,000 followers all too accustomed to October frustration and heartbreak roared in delirious unison.
And never for the final time this fall, both.
Not after a virtually flawless efficiency from their ballclub on Friday.
With a 2-0 defeat of the San Diego Padres in Recreation 5 of the Nationwide League Division Sequence, the Dodgers did extra than simply eradicate their Southern California rivals and advance to the NL Championship Sequence. Staring down a 3rd straight potential NLDS exit, they banded collectively, shut down the Padres’ powerhouse lineup and exorcised some maddening postseason demons within the course of.
“I think we’re all sick of it,” infielder Gavin Lux added. “We want to change the narrative.”
Certainly, in every of the final two years, and three of the final 5, the Dodgers failed to supply a second like Friday’s.
In 2019, 2022 and 2023, they watched division-winning, 100-win ballclubs crash out of the playoffs within the best-of-five division collection spherical. Even in 2020, after they received a World Sequence, their NLDS victory got here in a neutral-site ballpark in entrance of zero followers.
This 12 months, nevertheless, was completely different. And Friday’s win, the Dodgers’ second straight dealing with elimination after falling behind two video games to at least one, was pure catharsis.
“I won’t lie to you, it’s a little bit of a relief,” third baseman Max Muncy mentioned. “But this is a different group this year. There’s a lot of fight … We were going to win this game, no doubt about it.”
In the Dodgers’ first postseason collection clincher in entrance of a house crowd since 2013, that inner perception was evident from the beginning.
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1. Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen, middle, celebrates with teammates after the workforce’s NLDS Recreation 5 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night time. 2. Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto celebrates after retiring the facet within the third inning. 3. Teoscar Hernández, left, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani after hitting a solo dwelling run. 4. Kiké Hernández celebrates with Dodgers teammate Mookie Betts after hitting a solo dwelling run within the second inning. 5. Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia celebrates after hanging out Jackson Merrill for the ultimate out of the seventh inning. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the $325-million offseason signing the Dodgers entrusted with the Recreation 5 begin, even after he apparently tipped his pitches in a three-inning, five-run clunker in Recreation 1, set the tone.
The 26-year-old right-hander retired the facet within the first inning. He stranded a two-out stroll within the second. Then, when the Padres mounted their largest risk in third, with two runners on and one out, he threw a 3-and-1 slider under the zone that Fernando Tatis Jr. rolled right into a double play.
“He was outstanding tonight,” Roberts mentioned. “I knew he wasn’t going to run from this spot.”
In a extra predictable improvement, Kiké Hernández rose to the event too, delivering the form of postseason affect the membership envisioned when it re-signed him within the offseason.
Within the backside of second, after a Will Smith double play sucked some life out of the gang, Hernández went attempting to find a first-pitch fastball from Padres starter Yu Darvish. When he obtained it, he related on a solo dwelling run to the higher reaches of the left-field pavilion.
“I kept telling myself, ‘They brought you here for a reason,’” mentioned Hernández, who has batted .340 in his final 35 playoff video games, courting to the 2020 postseason by which he received a World Sequence with the Dodgers.
“I wanted to come back to make a run with this team,” Hernández added. “Because I really want to have a parade.”
From there, Darvish was dominant — till he wasn’t.
After Darvish retired 14 consecutive batters following Hernández’s homer, extending his success in opposition to his former Dodgers workforce — he has a profession 2.27 earned-run common in opposition to them within the common season and held them to at least one run over seven innings within the Padres’ Recreation 2 win — they took the veteran right-hander deep once more within the seventh.
This time, it was courtesy of the opposite Hernández within the Dodgers’ lineup.
In a 2-and-1 depend, Teoscar Hernández obtained a slider over the plate. After depositing it within the left-field seats with a line drive, he chucked his bat away with one hand. The pandemonium that ensued precipitated Chavez Ravine to shake.
“I got a guy right here that likes the moment too,” Kiké mentioned in his postgame press convention, with Teoscar seated beside him. “I told him before Game 4, [it had] never been done in the history of this game, two Hernándezes going deep in the same game in the playoffs.”
Teoscar Hernández celebrates after hitting a solo dwelling run in the course of the Dodgers’ 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres in Recreation 5 of the NLDS on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
In the meantime, the pitching employees gave the Padres no method again, finishing the collection with back-to-back shutouts and a shocking streak of 24 consecutive scoreless innings, a workforce playoff file.
Yamamoto commanded his fastball with precision and snapped off an uncomfortable flurry of sliders, curveballs and splitters, producing a five-inning outing that was every thing the Dodgers have been hoping for after which some.
Evan Phillips obtained 5 outs after that, pumping up the ballpark as he left the mound following a strikeout of Manny Machado, who hit two balls to the warning monitor earlier within the recreation however completed the collection in a three-for-20 hunch.
A cursing, screaming Alex Vesia had veins popping from his neck after hanging out Jackson Merrill to finish the seventh.
“We know that the postseason runs through the bullpen,” Phillips mentioned. “Through all the ups and downs throughout the year, we know we’re building toward this moment.”
There was one nervous sequence at the beginning of the eighth, when Vesia — who returned for a second inning with a string of left-handers due up — known as for a coach whereas warming up and left with an obvious harm.
Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech celebrates in the course of the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ NLDS Recreation 5 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night time.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
That pressured Roberts to show to hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech sooner than he wished, for matchups that higher suited the left-handed Vesia.
Irrespective of. Kopech retired the facet so as, punctuating the inning by blowing a 102-mph fastball previous Jake Cronenworth. Trienen took care of the ninth, establishing an NLCS assembly with the New York Mets that may start Sunday at Dodger Stadium.
Eight extra wins nonetheless separate the Dodgers from profitable a World Sequence, one thing they haven’t completed in a full season since 1988.
However in a postseason all about redemption, their triumph Friday night time, given their early eliminations in current postseasons, served as a monumental and much-anticipated first step.
“We have a lot of ‘F-U’ in us,” Kiké Hernández mentioned. “We’ve overcame a lot of adversity, not only during the season but in this series. But we were able to come out on top, and that’s the only thing that matters.”
