by Cary Osborne
The sight of Roki Sasaki in the ninth inning is now becoming synonymous with Dodger postseason winning.
Sasaki, called upon to get the last out of the game with two on at ear-piercing Citizens Bank Park (and with a win slipping from the Dodgers’ grasp), finished the job on a ground ball off the bat of National League batting champion Trea Turner.
The Dodgers’ 4–3 victory on Monday gives them a 2–0 lead in the National League Division Series. They head back to Los Angeles for a potential clinch game on Wednesday.
“To come away with a win right there, huge, huge momentum maintainer,” said manager Dave Roberts.
Sasaki has recorded the final out in three of the four Dodger postseason wins.
This win was a product of infield precision in the pressure cooker in the ninth inning, Blake Snell’s excellence over six innings and another late rally from the Dodger offense.
Blake Treinen left in the ninth inning after Nick Castellanos’ double cut the Dodger lead to 4–3.
But Castellanos was cut down at third base for the first out of the ninth inning when Max Muncy fielded a bunt by Bryson Stott and threw to Mookie Betts who ran over from shortstop to cover the bag.
The Dodgers perfectly executed the wheel play — where on a bunt the shortstop breaks for third base to cover the bag while the third baseman busts in to field the ball.
“You never know when it’s going to happen, and for it to happen in the postseason in Philly, tough environment, and to be there, make the throw, make the catch, make the play, that’s pretty amazing,” Snell said. “Everyone’s fired up — the dugout went crazy. To be able to do that play and everyone do it correctly was pretty amazing.”
The Dodgers felt the bunt coming, and in a flash made a quick decision to run the wheel.
“Mookie did a great job of disguising the wheel play,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. “We teach our guys that if you see wheel, just pull it back and slash because you’ve got all kinds of room in the middle. But Mookie broke so late that it was tough for Stotty to pick it up.”
After a Harrison Bader single, Freddie Freeman fielded a Max Kepler grounder and tossed to second base for the force out.
It left runners on the corners and the Dodgers went from Alex Vesia to Sasaki.
Turner grounded the second pitch from Sasaki to Tommy Edman, whose one-hop throw was dug out by Freeman at first base to record the final out.
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Back in the sixth inning, with no score in the game and runners on first and second, Miguel Rojas fielded a grounder from Alex Bohm and raced the two-time NL stolen base champion Turner to third base and slid in to tag the bag to get the inning-ending force play.
The infield defense, in a game this close, was a separator.
And so was Snell.
Snell didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning — a two-out single off the bat of Edmundo Sosa. The Bohm grounder in the sixth was his final batter.
This is the second postseason game in two tries in which Snell allowed one hit through six innings. He allowed three hits in the seventh inning in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against the Reds to set his line at seven innings, four hits and two runs allowed.
This time around, Snell didn’t reach the seventh inning.
He got to 99 pitches, and at times navigated his way through traffic. The Phillies were 0-for-6 against him with runners on. He induced 23 swings and misses. They had only two hard-hit balls against him.
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He trapped the Phillies long enough for the Dodger offense to escape its own trap.
The Dodgers’ four-run seventh inning came after a 0-for-17 stretch against Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo.
The first two Dodgers — Teoscar Hernández and Freeman — reached in the seventh to knock Luzardo out of the game. Kiké Hernández’s dribbler to shortstop scored the first run. Will Smith delivered a two-run single for his first hit of the postseason. Shohei Ohtani gave the Dodgers a 4–0 lead with an RBI single.
The lead felt large until the ninth. The Dodgers went back to Sasaki, who recorded his first career save in Game 1 of the NLDS. Now he has two.
“He looks so good on the mound now, so confident,” Freeman said. “Even when he gets the outs, you can just tell, almost looked like he knew he was going to get it done. It’s a massive weapon for us this whole postseason now.”
2025 NLDS: The Dodgers’ precision gets them to a 2–0 lead in the series was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.