Reggie Jackson will all the time be “Mr. October” within the minds of baseball followers, however round these components, that moniker might be connected to a lesser-known and little heralded Dodgers utility man who appears to do his finest work on baseball’s largest stage.
Kiké Hernández delivered his newest in an extended line of autumnal blasts on Friday night time, sending a 95-mph fastball from Yu Darvish deep into into the left-field pavilion for a solo house run within the second inning of a 2-0 Nationwide League Division Sequence-clinching Recreation 5 victory over the San Diego Padres.
And, only for good measure, Hernández moved from heart discipline to 3rd base within the ninth inning and made two good performs on Donovan Solano and Fernando Tatis Jr. grounders, the latter ending a tense winner-take-all sport and igniting wild celebrations of gamers on the mound and followers amid the sellout crowd of 53,183 in Chavez Ravine.
Not that his teammates anticipated something much less.
“Kiké hitting a home run and making big plays is probably the least surprising thing of the night,” Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux stated amid pulsating hip-hop music, Champagne and beer showers and a haze of cigar smoke in a victorious clubhouse.
“In the bigger games, he’s always gonna show up. He’s got that look in his eyes that he’s gonna do something big, and this team feeds off of that.”
Hernández, who was acquired on the commerce deadline in 2023 and returned to the Dodgers. on a one-year, $4-million deal final winter, is a profession .238 hitter with a .713 on-base-plus-slugging proportion in 11 big-league seasons. However in 75 postseason video games, he’s batting .277 with an .899 OPS and 14 house runs, 9 for the Dodgers.
“We’re in Los Angeles with some of the greatest athletes of all time, and those great ones aren’t afraid to fail,” Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts stated. “Everyone knows Kiké loves the spotlight. Some people love it. Some people run from it.
“When you’re talking about this market, the postseason, people in [his native] Puerto Rico watching him all over the country, that’s when he’s at his best. This guy always rises to the occasion. The reason we got him this year was to win 11 games in October.”
Hernández didn’t all the time put on a cape in October. Approach again in his first postseason for the Dodgers, in a 3-2 loss to the New York Mets within the decisive Recreation 5 of the division sequence, Hernández struck out within the first inning with runners on first and third and grounded right into a double play with runners on first and third to finish the third.
Kiké Hernández celebrates after hitting a solo house run within the second inning of the Dodgers’ 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres in Recreation 5 of the NLDS on Friday night time.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Instances)
In 2016, Hernández went hitless in eight at-bats in an NL Championship Sequence loss to the Chicago Cubs.
“My first postseason, we lost [Game 5] by one run, and you go through scenarios of how the game could have gone differently — if I came through for my team, the game would have been different, and maybe we would have advanced,” Hernández stated. “I went with that same mentality in 2016, and it didn’t go well for me.
“But in 2017, I had a completely different mindset. We had a great team, we were rolling, and the night before Game 5 of the NLCS, I switched gears for the first time and said, ‘I’m tired of feeling what if, what if.’ I went to bed thinking about how I’m going to answer questions because I had a great day to put the team in the World Series.”
The subsequent night time in Wrigley Discipline, Hernández hit three house runs and drove in seven runs in an 11-1 victory over the Cubs that despatched the Dodgers into the World Sequence towards the Houston Astros, “and I haven’t looked back since,” he stated.
As a lot pregame work as Hernández places in to arrange himself for the outfield and 4 infield positions and to maintain his swing in form, a few of his most necessary work takes place between his ears, usually the night time earlier than massive video games.
“You have to understand there’s only two ways it can go — you can either have success or you can fail — but you can’t be afraid of failure,” Hernández stated. “You’ve got to want the moment, want the at-bat. But it’s very easy to see yourself failing in the postseason, and the anxiety, the self-doubt, all these things start creeping into your mind.
Kiké Hernández, center, celebrates with Mookie Betts, left, and Teoscar Hernández after hitting a solo home run for the Dodgers in the second inning against the San Diego Padres in Game 5 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“That’s why I am such a strong believer in the power of visualizing the night before the game. Whenever those doubts come in, I visualize myself having success over and over again. You get to the field the next day, and you’ve already seen the day happen. So nothing overwhelms you. No moment gets too big.”
Hernández, who moved into the beginning lineup after shortstop Miguel Rojas aggravated his left-adductor harm in Recreation 3 and singled twice in an 8-0 Recreation 4 victory, doesn’t hog these visualization methods for himself.
“Kiké told me before the game that me and him are gonna be the first players with the same last name go yard in a playoff game, and we did it,” stated outfielder Teoscar Hernández, whose solo shot within the seventh gave the Dodgers an enormous insurance coverage run. “I believe in him. He believes in me. I believe in myself, and we enjoyed today.”
A pregame choice to comply with his intestine — and never essentially the staff’s scouting report — contributed to Kiké Hernández’s house run.
“I was talking to the hitting guys and I was like, ‘I think we gotta be on the fastball against Yu — he’s got way too many pitches to cover, and if you’re sitting off-speed, he’s got like five off-speed pitches,’ ” Hernández stated. “They were pretty strongly disagreeing with me. I’m glad I proved them wrong.”
Hernández jumped on Darvish’s first-pitch fastball on the inner-half and despatched a 109.2-mph drive 428 ft into the left-field seats. At all times the prankster, Hernández grabbed the groin of third-base coach Dino Ebel on his trot. After the sport, he was so excited he dropped an expletive throughout an on-field Fox Sports activities tv interview.
“I kept telling myself, ‘They brought you here for a reason, they brought you here to play in October,’ and I wanted to come back to make a run with this team, because I really want to have a parade,” Hernández stated. “I knew that whether it was on defense or at the plate, I was gonna find a way to win this game for us.”
