NLDS: The Dodgers hit back hard to force a winner-take-all Game 5

Yesterday at 07:19

by Cary Osborne

The Dodgers carry two years of Division Series dead weight.

Now they have an opportunity to shed it.

The Dodgers are going home with an opportunity to win the National League Division Series after an 8–0 victory in hostile San Diego in Game 4 of the NLDS.

"We have a bunch of grinders and a bunch of fighters," said Mookie Betts. "We knew this wasn't going to be easy. Nothing's easy. And so you just got to take whatever cards you're dealt and play them. And that's what we've been doing."

The series is tied 2–2, and the winner-take-all Game 5 is Friday at Dodger Stadium.

Considering that the Dodgers were going into Game 4 after losing two straight games, going with a bullpen game and missing injured first baseman Freddie Freeman and injured shortstop Miguel Rojas, it was a massive victory.

But the Dodger offensive output might have just been a matter of time.

The Dodgers hit three home runs — Betts a solo shot in the first inning off Padres starter Dylan Cease, Will Smith a two-run homer in the third and Gavin Lux a two-run homer in the seventh.

The Dodgers chased Cease in the second inning and had a 5–0 lead through three innings.

"For us to get to Cease early, get to their pen, obviously it gave us momentum," said manager Dave Roberts. "But, yeah, it started with Mookie right there."

This game was the first time the Dodgers led through three innings since Game 4 of the 2022 NLDS and the first time they have scored at least eight runs in a playoff game since Game 5 of the 2021 NL Championship Series.

The Dodgers came into Wednesday with 30 hard-hit balls (95-mph+ exit velocity) in the series and batted .333 on those. The Major League average was .490 in the 2024 regular season. The Padres meanwhile were batting .529 on hard-hit balls.

The Dodgers were 8-for-14 (.571) on hard-hit balls on Wednesday.

They were also 5-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

Betts had one of those hits — a second-inning RBI single that followed a Shohei Ohtani RBI single.

After Betts' 0-for-22 run in the postseason, he is 4-for-9 over his last two games. This comes after marathon hitting sessions in the batting cages.

Had he not been robbed of a home run by Jurickson Profar in Game 2, he'd have three straight games with a home run in the first inning.

"With the amount of swings I'm taking. I would hope something would fall. But you know it is what it is," Betts said. "If that one fell (in Game 2), maybe we're talking differently now. But it didn't. But we've got a Game 5, that's all I'm really focused on."

Instead, he has homers in back-to-back games.

Smith, meanwhile, was hitless in the series coming into Wednesday. He had one hit — the third-inning homer, which gave the Dodgers a 5–0 lead at the time. He had three hard-hit balls in the game.

Gavin Lux went 2-for-4 in the game and is now 5-for-15 in the series.

The early offensive output took some heat off the Dodger bullpen, which was tasked with stitching 27 outs together.

Eight pitchers blanketed and blanked the Padres.

The Dodger bullpen was outstanding, with every inning in this potential elimination game being a high-leverage frame.

Ryan Brasier retired the first four Padres of the game, then handed the needle off.

Anthony Banda had two on in the second and came out of it with a zero in the run column. Michael Kopech had Fernando Tatis Jr. on second base in the third and left with a zero. The combination of Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips hosed down a fire in the fifth inning, leaving two stranded.

Blake Treinen stranded a pair in the eighth inning.

The Padres were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position against the Dodgers.

"They were all fantastic," Smith said. "Attacking the zone, putting guys away, put up nine zeroes, and we needed that tonight. Credit to those guys keeping us in it. Obviously jumping ahead, but they did fantastic tonight."

NLDS: The Dodgers hit back hard to force a winner-take-all Game 5 was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.