Puerto Rican Kike Hernandez and Dominican Teoscar Hernandez hit home runs to back Japanese Yoshinobu Yamamoto and lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 on Friday in the fifth meeting that gave them the National League Divisional Series.
With the victory over the Padres (2-3), the Dodgers (3-2) earned the right to face the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series that will begin next Sunday at Dodgers Stadium, where they held this Friday before their audience.
The Dodgers received the presentation they were expecting from Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1-0), who toured the first five innings of the match, in which he allowed just two unstoppable bases per ball while punching two batters to leave the game with the Los Angeles team in the lead.
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Yamamoto managed to place 39 of his 63 pitches in the strike zone, which helped him to keep the Padres offensive cornered, which never found the offensive he showed in the first three duels of the series, which allowed the Dodgers to win the last two games and get back.
In the duel of Japanese pitchers, Yu Darvish (1-1), as happened in the second game of this series, met the Padres, pitching for 6.2 innings, in which he was hit three undisputed, gave away a ticket and punched four rivals, but ended up carrying the defeat.
Puerto Rican Kike Hernandez connected a Dargvish pawn and sent the ball over the wall, between the center and left gardens, to put the Dodgers in front on the scoreboard in the second inning.
For Hernandez, this was his third home run in decisive games in the postseason, tying with Venezuelan Jose Altuve and the immortal of the Hall of Fame, Yogi Berra, only behind Aaron Judge, who adds four quadrangulars in games of this type.
Dodgers pitchers hold Padres scoreless for 24 straight innings
Yamamoto, for his part, was impeccable 5 innings, 2 hits, 1 walk, and 2 strikeouts. A far cry from his erratic performance in the first game of the series. The 26-year-old right-hander lived up to the high expectations the Dodgers had when they signed him to a 12-year, $325 million contract.
And as usual, the Dodgers bullpen did the job in an unbeatable way again. Evan Phillips pitched 1.2 innings, Alex Vesia pitched a third of an inning with his typical energy, Michael Kopech 1 inning, and Blake Treinen, Roberts’s most reliable relief arm, completed the game with the last three outs. A 2-hit shutout with which the Padres accumulated 24 scoreless innings.
The Padres threatened to tie the game in the third episode when Kyle Higashioka and Venezuelan Luis Arraez connected consecutively indisputably, but Yamamoto dominated Fernando Tatis Jr. with double elimination to finish the inning.
The Dodgers extended the lead (2-0) in the seventh act when Dominican Teoscar Hernandez detonated the power of his bat in front of a slider that stayed over the strike zone, launched by Darvish, and deposited the spherical in the stands of the left forest.
Leader Dave Roberts’ strategy, after Yamamoto’s work, led him to combine relievers Evan Phillips, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech, and Blake Treinen (2), who took the rescue, to extend to 23, the chain of consecutive innings without allowing scores against the Padres’s batters, turning his pitching corps, which was his main weakness in this series, to strength.
In addition to Darvish, relievers Jason Adam and Tanner Scott responded to leader Mike Shildt, who did not receive the same treatment from his batters, who could barely achieve two unstoppable in the entire game.
