This time, they didn’t choke.
This time, they did the choking.
On an excellent night time amid a roiling sea of joyful blue, the Dodgers wrapped their weathered arms across the San Diego Padres Friday and crushed these brown jerseys like an empty paper sack, finally exhaling with redemption, aid and a coveted spot simply 4 wins from the World Sequence.
Within the winner-take-all Sport 5 of the Nationwide League Division Sequence, the Dodgers took all of the criticisms of the previous two postseason collapses and buried them below a barrage of fastballs and lengthy balls in a near-perfect 2-0 victory over the Padres at a shamelessly joyful Dodger Stadium.
Buried have been the sins of their predecessors, the failings of previous seasons, the rut of postseason humiliation.
Buried, from right here to Chula Vista.
It was the primary postseason series-clinching win at Chavez Ravine with followers in attendance in 11 years and, man, it was a sight.
When Kiké Hernández threw the ultimate groundball to Max Muncy the pavilion roofs got here unhinged, 50,000 followers leaping and roaring in unison, Blake Treinen standing in the midst of all of it on the mound, elevating each arms to the sky as if in shock, your complete Dodgers group surrounding him and hugging and bouncing as if shouting out two years of October ache.
“I Love L.A.” has hardly ever sounded louder, or lasted as lengthy, or been so stuffed with hope.
Later, in a Dodgers clubhouse teeming with bubbly, Miguel Rojas held up a shot glass and shouted to the group that had shut out the Padres over the ultimate 13 innings, “Hey bullpen! This shot is for your guys!”
Dave Roberts then exhorted his group to maintain pushing, the supervisor shouting, “Eight more wins! And I tell you right now guys, I’ve never believed in a group of men more than I believe in you guys. And more importantly, each one of you guys believed in each other.”
The Dodgers now host the upstart New York Mets within the Nationwide League Championship starting right here Sunday, a seven-game duel with the winner advancing to the World Sequence.
It’ll really feel anticlimactic, and for good cause. The Dodgers ought to dominate. The outmanned Mets have been advancing this postseason on little miracles. The superior Dodgers are all muscle.
They proved it as soon as and for all Friday night time towards a Padres group that was most likely their greatest hurdle of their chase for his or her first full-season World Sequence championship in 36 years.
This primary collection was the exhausting one. This was the one the Dodgers actually wanted. They entered the tense night amid the reminiscences of first-round exits within the final two postseasons, together with a 2022 humiliation by these Padres.
May they shake off the demons of their historical past? May they erase the reminiscences of their failures?
May they ever.
Dodgers gamers have fun round reliever Blake Treinen after the ultimate out of Sport 5 of the NLDS towards the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night time.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Occasions)
“We didn’t come here to win the NL West; we came to win the World Series… we’ve got to do that or we go home and we think about it all offseason and this team gets to spring training to think about failures from years past, blah, blah, blah,” Hernández stated.
They certainly averted the blah, blah, blah.
They did it with wow, wow, wow.
It began with the shock starter giving a stunning efficiency, struggling Yoshinobu Yamamoto lastly incomes a few of his file $325 million contract by shutting out the Padres on two hits over 5 innings.
It continued with the Dodgers’ personal Señor October, Hernández, a prolific October hitter who despatched Yu Darvish’s first pitch into the left-field stands within the second inning. Hernández has a tremendous 14 homers and 29 RBIs in 188 postseason at-bats, together with three residence runs towards the Chicago Cubs in Sport 5 of the 2017 NLCS.
“You’ve got to have the right mindset, the right mentality, to come in here and just find a way to dominate the day,” he stated, noting that he visualizes postseason success. “You just find a way, whatever it is that you’ve got to find so that when the moment shows up, when the big moment shows up and you step up to the plate or whatever it is, you don’t let the moment get too big, you feel like you’re bigger than the moment and there’s no moment that’s going to get too big for you.”
His second was adopted 5 innings later by an identical shot into the left-field stands by Teoscar Hernández, the underrated offseason steal by Andrew Friedman, the MVP who’s not named Ohtani.
The sport completed with the Dodger bullpen that had been so good in a Sport 4 do-or-die win, this time 4 relievers holding the Padres hitless over the ultimate 4 innings. The Padres completed the collection with out scoring a run within the ultimate 24 innings with Dodger pitching retiring the ultimate 19 batters.
Kiké Hernández, middle, celebrates with Mookie Betts, left, and Teoscar Hernández after hitting a solo residence run for the Dodgers within the second inning towards the San Diego Padres in Sport 5 of the NLDS at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Occasions)
The group roared with each pitch and saved their water bottles to themselves, a worthy accompanist to a group flirting with greatness.
“If there’s something that this crowd is, it’s hungry,” stated Kiké Hernández. “They want a championship. They want another one. The one we had a couple years back, the city didn’t get to celebrate it because of obvious circumstances. We know how bad they want it…we just know that our fans have our backs and we’re ready to rock with them.”
They rocked, the Padres have been rolled, one October chapter completed, two extra remaining, a once-dreaded journey dances on.
