LOS ANGELES — Eleven days before winning the National League pennant, the Los Angeles Dodgers huddled inside the visitor’s clubhouse at San Diego’s Petco Park, two hours away from Game 4 of the National League Division Series, one defeat away from another October ending without a parade, another year deemed a failure.
The season had been long and trying, distorted by expectations and marred by injuries. Yet the Dodgers did not want it to end. They got to talking. Several players spoke up, their words turning into a chorus: Stop playing as if weighted by the pressure. Loosen up. No one, decided this group of well-compensated, highly decorated, preposterously talented players, believed in them besides themselves.
The Dodgers won that night. They won the next game and the next game, and they kept on winning until Sunday evening, when the club captured a 10-5 victory over the New York Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers ended a heartwarming run for the Mets and restored Los Angeles to its usual place at this time of year, representing the National League in the World Series. Game 1 between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees will take place on Friday at Dodger Stadium.
To get there, the Dodgers relied upon the same formula that carried through the critical victory against San Diego 11 days ago: A bullpen game. A team headlined by Shohei Ohtani, the game’s biggest star, trusted the collective. The relievers stitched together 27 outs against a Mets team that had appeared allergic to cardiac arrest this month. Tommy Edman, an under-the-radar Dodgers trade deadline acquisition who would be named the MVP of the NLCS, supplied a two-run double in the first inning and a two-run homer in the third. Will Smith added a two-run homer later in the third which proved pivotal as the bullpen held the line. Ohtani delivered an RBI single in the sixth for some insurance.
Shohei Ohtani has reached base 16 times in this #NLCS, a @Dodgers franchise record for a single #postseason series!
h/t @SlangsOnSports pic.twitter.com/qDArStNJhb
— MLB (@MLB) October 21, 2024
The Dodgers earned entry to the Fall Classic for the fourth time in eight seasons. This will be their first appearance since winning it all inside the Covid-tainted bubble of 2020. The brief break between pennants heightened pressure on manager Dave Roberts, invited scrutiny of president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and motivated the club’s $1.4 billion offseason splurge centered around Ohtani.
When Dodgers officials thought about Ohtani, they conjured fantasies about endless streams of revenue and a decade of contending for the World Series. They expected to reach this stage. They just did not expect the first summit to look like this, with their starting rotation in shambles and their first baseman hobbled but their spirit unbroken.
“It’s gone the way we had expected in terms of where we are at today,” Roberts said in the afternoon before Game 5 of this series. “How we got there, absolutely not how we envisioned this.”
It looked straightforward on paper. The Dodgers forked over $375 million to make Yoshinobu Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history. To join Yamamoto atop the rotation, Friedman acquired budding ace Tyler Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays and inked him to a $136.5 million extension. Glasnow and Yamamoto would headline a group of starters infused with youth and electric stuff. Ohtani would form an unholy triumvirate atop the lineup with Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
What could go wrong?
Some teams are bitten by snakes; the Dodgers spent 2024 engulfed by a nest of vipers. The season began with the scandal wrought by interpreter Ippei Mizuhara swindling Ohtani to pay off gambling debts. The connection between Ohtani and gambling sparked worldwide headlines and endless speculation. For a few hours after the story broke, Dodgers team president Stan Kasten wondered if the team had built its future around a fraud.
Mizuhara soon turned himself over to the authorities and pled guilty to charges of bank and tax fraud. The betrayal did not affect Ohtani on the field. Amid the tumult, Ohtani felt grateful that his organization embraced him rather than shunned him. “It made me really realize how supportive the teammates, the organization, the staff have been towards me,” Ohtani said in April through his new interpreter, longtime team employee Will Ireton.
But the year did not get easier. During a 24-hour period in June, Yamamoto injured his shoulder and Betts suffered a broken hand. Betts missed nearly two months. Yamamoto did not pitch again until Sept. 10. By then, the team’s pitching staff was in tatters. A rash of injuries to young arms prompted a scheduled autopsy of the organization’s pitching development practices this winter. Clayton Kershaw made it back from offseason shoulder surgery only to wreck his toe and render himself unavailable. Glasnow hurt his elbow in August and never returned.
On Sept. 26, the Dodgers wrapped up their 11th National League West title in the past 12 seasons. The clinch epitomized the season. The Dodgers fended off a last-minute charge from San Diego and won a series at Dodger Stadium. Late in the game, Freeman rolled his ankle trying to leg out a play at first base. Nothing in this year would come easy.
In turn, the team drew inward. They organized group dinners and watched the Wild Card round together. The players traded expletive-laden texts when they learned pundits picked the Padres to defeat them in the Division Series. They took a players-only bus to San Diego after Game 2 and rallied around each other after the Padres won Game 3. That was when the group gathered inside the clubhouse and exhorted each other to pull together. Eight relievers combined for a series-tying shutout.
After a white-knuckled Game 5 victory, veteran utility man Kiké Hernández laid bare the team’s mantra in an on-field interview with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Rosenthal asked Hernández what separated this group from so many others who crashed out of October earlier than expected.
“Are we live?” Hernández asked.
“We’re live,” Rosenthal said.
“That fact that we don’t give a f—.”
Much like Rosenthal, in the next round the Mets had no answer for Hernández and the Dodgers. The boys from Queens were the darlings of this postseason, staging a last-minute comeback to down the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round before toppling the Philadelphia Phillies in the Division Series. The run took a toll on the pitching staff. The bullpen looked gassed when the series began. The Dodgers hung nine runs on the Mets in Game 1, eight in Game 3 and 10 in Game 4. In Game 6, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza turned to Sean Manaea, his best starter, who had quieted the Dodgers in Game 2.
Manaea lacked the crispness displayed in his first outing. After Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech yielded a run in the first inning, the lineup reclaimed the lead after only four batters. After singles by Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández, Edman hooked a sweeper into the left-field corner for a two-run double. Manaea required 34 pitches to complete the first.
He could not finish the third. Edman bested him once more. With Hernández at first base, Manaea flung an elevated four-seamer. Edman got on top of the pitch and lifted it into the left-field bleachers. Manaea lasted only one more batter, walking Max Muncy before ceding the stage to reliever Phil Maton. A crucial contributor to the Mets’ playoff push, Maton became flammable this month. He served up a two-run blast to Smith, who had entered the day batting .158 in this series, to push the lead to five.
WILL SMITH 2-RUN HOMER 💪
Dodgers take a commanding lead!!
📺: FS1 pic.twitter.com/3mV0rpmngL
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 21, 2024
The rest of the night was still stressful. A bullpen game in the National League Championship Series should be. The Mets demonstrated their resolve. Mark Vientos, the rookie third baseman who has become a budding star, walloped a two-run homer off Dodgers reliever Ryan Brasier in the fourth.
The Mets brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the sixth. Roberts turned a three-run lead over to Evan Phillips, one of the relievers the manager has trusted this month. Phillips gave up a leadoff single to catcher Francisco Alvarez before walking Vientos and first baseman Pete Alonso. Phillips recovered to strand the bases loaded when designated hitter Jesse Winker flied out to left.
In the sixth, Ohtani punched a single into center field with a pair of runners aboard. With the outfielders playing deep, the ball splashed in front of Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor. Smith hustled around to score. The Mets matched the run in the top of the seventh on a sacrifice fly from Alvarez. Up three runs, the final six outs belonged to Blake Treinen, who watched the Dodgers tack on three more runs. With the added cushion, he closed the door and ushered the Dodgers into a celebration.
For the Dodgers, the season was not easy. The season did not follow the intended script. But the season will end as the Dodgers envisioned all those months ago. On Friday night, they will host Game 1 of the World Series.
(Top photo of Tommy Edman celebrating his homer with Teoscar Hernández in the third inning of Game 6: Harry How / Getty Images)
