ATLANTA — As the postseason approached, Max Muncy reflected on the Dodgers’ championship runs the past two seasons, so reliant on heroic performances by their pitching staff.
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“It would be nice to slug our way to a World Series one of these years,” he said, manifesting with tongue in cheek.
They kinda are.
Kiké Hernandez and Freddie Freeman hit home runs off of Chris Sale, giving enough run support for the standard-issue postseason start by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 3-1, on Tuesday night.
The Dodgers will try to close out the best-of-five National League Division Series on Wednesday night at Truist Park with Tyler Glasnow scheduled to start Game 4.
“We needed a little bit of that Kiké dust,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
The Dodgers’ offense has been kind of dusty in these three games.
So far in this series, the Dodgers have redefined the location of ‘scoring position.’ Officially, it means there is a runner on second or third base. They are hitless in this series (0 for 13) in those situations, but their first 10 runs in this series have all scored on the seven home runs. Ten runs all on home runs is the longest streak to start a postseason series in MLB history.
“I mean, if we win who cares, you know?” Hernandez said. “We’ve got to find ways to score and when you’re facing aces it’s really hard to put a lot of singles, a lot of hits together in one inning. … The majority of the time in October, especially I don’t know the last five years or so, I feel like the longball is – it’s not our approach but homers are runs and runs come at a premium. Especially when you’re facing an ace. It’s just really hard to rally against aces.
“The whole point of the game is to score more runs than the other team. If we do it by bunting people over great. If we do it by homers, great. The whole point of this game is to score runs. The fact that we’ve done it by the longball is just what’s happening in the moment.”
Sale struck out six Dodgers in the first two innings. But it was a stressed Sale.
The Dodgers put two runners on in the first inning, got another to second base in the second inning and loaded the bases in the third inning when Shohei Ohtani reached base with two outs on a catcher’s interference.
Freeman nearly got to Sale in that third inning when he sent a drive over the wall in left field – but Maurico Dubón reached over the top of the fence and caught it, robbing Freeman of a home run.
None of those situations resulted in runs thanks to the Dodgers’ struggles with RISP hitting. But it forced Sale to work. He threw 24 pitches in the first inning, 18 more in the second and 20 in the third, putting him at 62 through three innings.
In his complete-game shutout of the Dodgers in August, Sale didn’t throw his 62nd pitch until the sixth inning.
“It certainly speaks to the experience, the buy-in, because if you don’t get results when you’re committed to kind of grinding, sometimes it’s easy to come off of that,” Roberts said. “But I thought tonight from start to finish we did a good job of grinding.
“And it speaks to how important this game was.”
The Dodgers took advantage in the fourth inning. Andy Pages led off with a single – the third time in four innings the Dodgers put their leadoff hitter on base.
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Two batters later, the most dangerous .222 hitter October will see stepped to the plate. Kiké Hernandez got a changeup in at his knees and was all over it, sending it 406 feet into the seats for his 17th career postseason home run. Two batters later, Freeman got the home run Dubón stole from him, sending this drive out of reach in the right field seats this time.
The home runs came from two of the most prolific postseason performers in MLB. Freeman’s home run was the 18th of his postseason career (tied for second among active players). For Hernandez, it was his 17th in his franchise record 94th postseason game.
“It’s something I take a lot of pride in but don’t really think about it too much,” Hernandez said. “It’s something that once I’m done playing I’m going to look back on and be really proud of because the way my career has gone in terms of finding myself each and every year in October. Experience helps a lot. Experience helps a lot with the heartbeat. Experience helps with the night before, the drives in.”
Experience and preparation – catcher Will Smith called him “more prepared than anybody” when he gets in the lineup – helped him in the at-bat against Sale (a teammate for parts of three seasons in Boston).
“My mentality was to grind him out because I feel like that was the first time all night the first two batters kind of ended their at-bats early,” Hernandez said. “Pages did a great job getting on base. Tucker put a good swing on it and the ball went right to Ozzie (Albies). I felt hitting at the bottom of the lineup my responsibility was to not chase him around, not give in to what he was trying to get me to do which was roll over and hit into a double play.
“So my mentality was to grind out the at-bat, try to get a good pitch to hit. If not, just be patient so I could turn the lineup over to Mookie at the top. He doubled up on the changeup. So he kind of showed me where the changeup was going to start for a ball then the next pitch my eyes recognized it popped and I was lucky I put a good swing on it.”
The three-run power burst gave the Dodgers a lead to protect behind Yamamoto – who lost just one start during the regular season in which the Dodgers scored at least three runs and has never lost a postseason game in which he pitched and the Dodgers scored at least three runs.
His first start delayed by Dodgers’ machinations until Game 3, Yamamoto simply picked up where he left off last October.
While Sale was under pressure, Yamamoto’s first four innings were largely stress-free. He retired 12 of the first 14 Braves batters, allowing a bunt single in the second inning and another single in the fourth. Neither runner made it to second base.
He wobbled slightly in the fifth, giving up back-to-back singles to Dubón and Lane Thomas then walking pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez to load the bases with one out. A run scored on a ground out before Yamamoto escaped the inning.
The Braves didn’t get another baserunner against Yamamoto, who retired the final eight batters he faced and struck out a postseason career-high 10 in his seven innings. He is now 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA in his postseason career.
“He was on,” Smith said. “He had all his pitches working. He was mixing, changing speeds, going in, going out. Kind of just had everything going and (was) really keeping them off balance.”
Tanner Scott and Edwin Diaz closed it out, Diaz returning to the closer role in a save situation for the first time since Aug. 14 and working around a leadoff double by Ozzie Albies in the ninth.
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