This hasn’t been the perfect of seasons for Tommy Edman or the perfect of postseasons for Andy Pages.
However each stepped up once they have been wanted most Thursday, with Edman singling to begin the game-winning rally and Pages’ delicate comebacker to the mound beginning the unusual play that gave the Dodgers a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Recreation 4 of the Nationwide League Division Sequence. The victory sends the group on to subsequent week’s NL Championship Sequence towards the Chicago Cubs or Milwaukee Brewers.
For Edman, baseball’s greatest stage has lengthy been a cushty place. If teammate Kiké Hernández has confirmed to be top-of-the-line postseason gamers in current historical past, Edman isn’t far behind. In 5 playoff sequence with the Dodgers, Edman, a .258 hitter within the common season, is batting .306. And final October he had 11 hits and 11 RBIs towards the Mets within the NLCS, successful MVP honors.
“Tommy is a competitor,” infielder Miguel Rojas mentioned throughout the Dodgers’ beer-soaked victory celebration, a pair of ski googles on his head and a bottle of champagne in a single hand. “I feel like everything that happens to him in this stage is not a coincidence.”
Edman definitely deserves one thing for the endurance and persistence he confirmed throughout a attempting summer time. A proper ankle harm, which despatched him to the harm record twice, restricted him to simply 97 video games and his .225 batting common and 78 hits have been his lowest totals for a full season. But regardless of enjoying in discomfort throughout the playoffs, he’s hit safely in 4 of the 5 video games by which he’s appeared.
“Everybody on our team likes the big moment,” Edman mentioned. “We just do our best to keep on passing the baton and find a way to win.”
Edman made his greatest contribution within the eleventh inning Thursday, although he needed to watch from the bench to see the way it performed out. With one out, Edman battled by means of an eight-pitch at-bat earlier than lining a single to left, the Dodgers’ first hit because the seventh inning.
Edman then exited for pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim, who got here round to attain the successful run on a single, a stroll and Pages’ two-hopper again to the mound that Phillies’ pitcher Orion Kerkering fumbled, then threw away. The comedian sequence so shocked Kim, he ran previous the plate earlier than returning to ensure the run counted.
Tommy Edman hits a single throughout the Dodgers’ 2-1 win over the Phillies in Recreation 4 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night time.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
“You see the ball come off the bat, you think it’s the third out, and you see him boot it and throw the ball away,” Edman mentioned. “And that’s the game right there. Definitely not the way we expected to win.”
It might not have been fairly, and even significantly memorable. However it saved alive the Dodgers’ quest to win a second consecutive World Sequence.
“We’re glad to be moving on,” Edman mentioned. “And hopefully it ends well with a few more wins.”
Whereas Edman is at his finest beneath the postseason highlight, Pages is…effectively, the other. He hit .211 with extra strikeouts than hits within the first two playoff sequence final fall and was left off the roster for the World Sequence.
His struggles have been much more pronounced this fall. When he got here to the plate with the bases loaded within the eleventh inning Thursday, he was 1 for 23 within the postseason.
He managed to place the ball in play, nonetheless, and Kerkering did the remaining.
“Anything can happen when you put the ball in play,” Rojas mentioned. “He’s been fighting, and he’s been going through it in the [batting] cage. I know how hard he works. The confidence that he can get from this is going to be amazing.”
Throughout the room Pages stood in an increasing puddle of champagne, clutching a handful of Budweiser bottles as teammates took turns pouring beer over this head.
“I knew that moment would come,” he mentioned in Spanish. “The two at-bats before the last one, I had good at-bats. But it wasn’t my moment. So, I just thought maybe there will be another one.”
For Pages, who batted .272 with 27 homers and 86 RBIs throughout the common season, it wasn’t probably the most spectacular at-bat in his brief profession. However it could have been an important.
“Our goal has always been the same: to win the World Series,” Pages mentioned.“To keep moving forward, keep winning games, is what ultimately matters to us.”
However there’s additionally one thing private at stake for Pages, who grew up in Cuba so poor his carpenter father made the bats he performed with. He escaped from the island at 15 to chase a professional profession, the one factor that may make that sacrifice well worth the value. His dad and mom, in the meantime, stay in Cuba, separated from a son who they comply with on TV and thru social media.
So Pages, juggling the beer bottles, took a second to lift a toast to them within the bedlam of the victory celebration.
“To all the people who supported me during the bad times I was going through,” he mentioned. “I am always grateful to them.”
Thursday he and Edman gave these individuals one thing to cheer.
