by Cary Osborne
Open champagne bottles sat on a table in a corridor between the Dodgers’ video room and the clubhouse after the team’s 7–6 win in 11 innings over the Red Sox on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
Kiké Hernández had just been celebrated, as he had been to begin the day.
Fewer than 10% of Major League players accumulate 10 years of service time, and thus it’s a special achievement recognized whenever a player hits the mark.
Saturday was that day for Hernández.
And it was made more special with Hernández’s two game-tying hits — a home run in the ninth inning and a double in the 10th inning of the Dodgers’ 7–6 walk-off win in 11 innings. Hernández scored the winning run in the 11th on Will Smith’s sixth-career walk-off hit.
“It’s been a day of a lot of a lot of reflection,” Hernández said. “This game, it’s such a grind, such a long season. It’s hard to sit back and appreciate what you’ve done or what the game has done for you. And this game has done so many things for me. And my family — my wife, my parents, my sisters — did a really good job this morning of making sure that I enjoyed today, and that I made sure that this was a special one. And it’s funny how things work.”
The day began with a celebration at home with his wife, daughter, parents, two sisters, their boyfriends and the family dogs. Hernández’s wife Mariana surprised her husband with an hour-long video featuring messages from people who impacted his career and helped him on this 10-year journey.
But he began the game out of the starting lineup and watching six-and-half innings go by until he pinch-hit in the seventh inning and struck out.
Hernández will admit the challenges of 2024.
But in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Dodgers trailing by one run and his friend and former teammate Kenley Jansen on the mound for the Red Sox, Hernández was up for this one.
He was attacked with a barrage of Kenley cutters.
Hernández faced Jansen one other time in his career and flew out deep to left-center field on May 11, 2022. On his way back to the dugout, Jansen joked with him: “Keep cheating to the cutter.”
Hernández did so on the fifth pitch he saw from Jansen on Saturday and hit it 415 feet to the Left Field Pavilion to tie the score 4–4.
https://medium.com/media/f380c95c889efc4aa7b01b7fb75535c3/href
“I didn’t hear it because the stadium was loud, and I was kind of blacked out because it’s been a while since I did something, had a big moment in the stadium,” Hernández said.
The 32-year-old came into the game batting .191 this season and was 1-for-21 in July. He’s had numerous big moments in his career with the Dodgers — including his three-homer game in Game 5 of the 2017 National League Championship Series.
But this year has been a struggle. So much so that when reporters surrounded him after the game he jokingly reintroduced them to where his locker is.
Hernández has started 51 games for the Dodgers this season. He has been subbed out at some point in 11 games and entered a game as a sub in 21.
“It’s always tough for him because I think he sees himself in a certain light, which I think all players should,” said manager Dave Roberts. “But I think that he’s understanding how he fits on this ballclub. And that’s something that a lot of our conversation we have is when you have that clarity or that kind of understanding then you perform better. And so he’s got a certain role. I count on them a lot. I depend on him.”
That’s why he was put in the spot to pinch-hit in the first place in the seventh with the Dodgers trailing 4–3. He didn’t come through in the spot. But he did in the ninth. He did so again in the 10th.
After each pitch Hernández saw in the 10th inning on Saturday, he went into his routine.
He stepped out of the batter’s box, adjusted his batting gloves, took a deep breath, looked at the barrel of his bat and stepped back in.
“It was just about trying to slow everything down and go and pitch to pitch and having a lot of self-talk,” Hernández said. “It’s been hard to stay confident, but I just kept telling myself throughout the at-bat, ‘There’s nobody better in these types of situations.’”
From an 0–2 count to a full count, he stepped back into the box to see a seventh pitch from Boston reliever Greg Weissert. He lined that seventh pitch into center field to drive in Andy Pages and tie the score.
https://medium.com/media/ef8a2fbbafaeb97329ee26153aff52bf/href
An inning later, he crossed the plate with the winning score.
Kershaw to Make His 2024 Dodger Debut
Dave Roberts said after the game that Clayton Kershaw will make his first start of the year for the Dodgers on Thursday against the Giants. He also said Tyler Glasnow will come off the injured list and start on Wednesday.
Kershaw pitched four innings on Friday in his final rehab assignment after offseason left shoulder surgery. He threw 67 pitches.
It was celebration day for Kiké Hernández was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.