PHILADELPHIA — Teoscar Hernández’s stroll brought silence. Gone was the roar of a Citizens Bank Park crowd that razzed him for a defensive miscue in right field hours earlier.
Instead, quiet was all Hernández heard as he strode down the first-base line. He watched when Harrison Bader ran out of real estate in center field, following the ball as it flew into the seats.
Everything changes when you have the last big swing.
The Dodgers stole a game Saturday in this madhouse of a ballpark, and they have Hernández to thank. His go-ahead three-run blast off of Matt Strahm in the seventh inning fueled a 5-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. The comeback win swung home-field advantage in the National League Division Series.
This is what the Dodgers were hoping for. Hitting coach Aaron Bates spent the hitters’ meeting earlier in the day reinforcing the danger that a Red October in this building could bring. At one point, Bates cautioned the players that the crowd of 45,777 would reach a frenzy. He told them it would be up to the Dodgers’ offense to drop the decibels.
“There are certain places where it’s hard to play in October,” Bates said. “So you just have to really stick to whatever your plan is that day, and kind of have tunnel vision. … Just build momentum for yourself.”
“Something’s going to happen in this game that the crowd’s gonna go wild, but that doesn’t matter,” Max Muncy said. “What matters is what happens at the end, and when we silence the crowd, it’s gonna be an amazing feeling.”
Miguel Rojas said of Teoscar Hernández: ‘He’s ready for the opportunity, and if you make a bad pitch, he’s going to make you pay.’ (Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
The chorus roared with jeers from a Red October before Shohei Ohtani even took the mound for his first career postseason start.
SHO-HEI, SHO-HEI, SHO-HEI
Not long after, the ballpark verged on eruption as the Phillies broke through in the second inning. When the first two hitters reached, the crowd made such a din that Ohtani reached his glove to cup his left ear just to hear the PitchCom device. Then J.T. Realmuto squared up a 100 mph fastball into the right-field gap. Hernández let it trickle past him for a two-run triple.
“I tried to get it, so he can’t go all the way to third or they can score two runs in that situation,” Hernández said. “It went by me.”
Full eruption. The extra 90 feet mattered, as Realmuto wound up scoring on Bader’s ensuing sacrifice fly to give the Phillies a 3-0 lead. For the second time in three games this postseason, Hernández’s defensive lapses had either created or exacerbated an early Dodgers’ deficit.
Ohtani’s resolve and command steeled, and he completed six strong innings. The Dodgers’ offense, fooled by Cristopher Sánchez’s changeup all night, found a way to force the left-hander from the game in the sixth inning when Kiké Hernández turned on a two-out slider and laced it into the corner to bring home a pair of runs, making it 3-2.
In the seventh, a leadoff single from Andy Pages and a hit by pitch from Will Smith forced Phillies manager Rob Thomson’s hand: he needed lefty Matt Strahm on Ohtani, even if it meant that Strahm would have to face Hernández, a right-handed hitter.
Hernández kept a role through a trying year for nights and spots like these. His return to Los Angeles had not gone as planned. His defense was frightful. His bat slumped after April. He’d fallen enough out of Roberts’ favor that the manager sat him last month, hoping that a reset would restore the “edge” that Roberts felt Hernández was suddenly lacking.
He’s still hitting in the middle of the order because he keeps arriving in October. Hernández opened the Dodgers’ postseason slate Tuesday with a pair of home runs against the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.
Saturday, the moment found him again.
“When you have a chance to have a guy like Teo in the lineup, whatever happened in the past, it doesn’t matter for him,” Miguel Rojas said. “He’s ready for the opportunity, and if you make a bad pitch, he’s going to make you pay.”
Pages said that while taking his lead at second base, he had a visual of Strahm’s glove. When Realmuto set up inside for the first pitch to Hernández, Pages raised his right arm. Strahm missed with a cutter up. When Realmuto set up inside again, Pages again raised his right arm.
Pages denied to The Athletic, in Spanish, that he was relaying signals. Strahm’s next pitch didn’t even reach its intended target inside.
Instead, Strahm’s fastball bled out over the plate. Hernández connected and walked slowly as he made his way around the bases. His eighth career postseason homer flew into the seats at a much faster rate.
Whatever woes his defense created, his bat more than made up for.
“At the end of the day, for me, anything that happened before a big moment like that, it’s in the past,” Hernández said.
He’d done his job. He silenced the crowd. What’s more, he said, he didn’t even recall Bates’ pregame message. Those in the dugout did, though, chirping at their hitting coach as Hernández rounded the bases.
“Obviously, they scored early,” Rojas said. “They punched us in the face right there. But we knew we were going to be winning in the seventh inning. (Bates) said it.”
So it was. The latest iteration of the Dodgers’ bullpen managed to hold the lead down, with likely Game 4 starter Tyler Glasnow recording five outs, Alex Vesia escaping an eighth-inning jam and Roki Sasaki recording his first-ever save in, of all places, this one.
The silence returned in the ninth, when Bryson Stott’s foul pop-up wound up in Muncy’s glove and the Dodgers’ victory was complete.
The moment was bound to come. This time, the Dodgers were able to swing it at just the right time.
“All 12 of us on offense, everyone’s gonna have their chance to make a big moment,” Muncy said. “It’s fun to be there watching it in person and celebrating with everybody. It’s an unreal feeling.”
(Top photo of Teoscar Hernández: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)
