by Cary Osborne
Nine days ago, Kiké Hernández sat in front of a microphone with hair dampened by champagne. He contemplated a question about the Dodgers’ journey this season.
The Dodgers had just defeated the Padres to win the National League Division Series, and the season started to flash through his mind.
The veteran utilityman talked about the rookies and the trades, the waiver claims and all the pieces that came together to make this team work. And he mentioned the scouting department and front office.
It was a collective that responded to the first-half’s bitter ending in Detroit, overcame injuries that decimated the starting rotation and changed the narrative about this team in Division Series.
Nine days later, there was another example of more than 26 men playing nine innings to beat an opponent.
The gameplan was to grind the Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.
Grind Mets starting pitcher Sean Manaea — who lifted the Mets in Game 2.
It was to grind through Mets hitters with relief pitcher after relief pitcher — it ended up being seven of them in total.
It wasn’t pretty at times, but it was a gameplan with a lot of hands on it executed by the 17 players who played on Sunday and the coaching staff.
The Dodgers are headed back to the World Series after beating the New York Mets 10–5 in Game 6 of the NLCS.
“There was a complete buy-in,” said manager Dave Roberts. “The egos were checked at the door, and it took all of us.”
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The Dodgers now play the New York Yankees in the World Series renewing baseball’s classic interleague rivalry.
Both teams have long been favored in each league to get here. But it wasn’t exactly the way it was planned for the Dodgers.
“This is as challenging a season in terms of the injuries and adversity and things that popped up as I can remember,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of Baseball Operations. “And so for us to be where we are right now speaks to our scouting staff, our analysts, our player development group — just the fingerprints that are on this. For the contributions that our young players were able to come up and make, and really speaks to the veterans in our clubhouse who made it so comfortable for them to come up and be confident.”
Trade deadline acquisition Tommy Edman drove in four runs — two in the first inning with a double, two in the third with a home run. He was the NLCS MVP after tying Corey Seager’s franchise NLCS record of 11 RBI in a series.
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Homegrown catcher Will Smith hit a two-run homer in the third.
The biggest free-agent signing in franchise history, Shohei Ohtani, drove in a run with a single in the sixth. The Dodgers were up 7–3 at that point.
It was the Dodger hitters’ approach early on that set the table.
Manaea’s tricky arm slot in Game 2 was a neutralizer.
But in Game 6, 11 of the 14 Dodgers batters took first pitches. They fouled off 16 of his 64 pitches. And by the third inning, he was out of the game.
“Our righties had a tough time last time against him. He was getting the ball inside on us. He was executing very well,” said Dodger infielder Max Muncy. “We changed our game plan from last time, and we made him work a lot. We made him throw a lot of pitches — tired him out, and we got some chaos on the bases. That was huge for us.”
The Dodgers’ bullpen game started with trade deadline pickup Michael Kopech, then went to rookie Ben Casparius and onto Anthony Banda, who was in Cleveland’s Minor Leagues when he was acquired by the Dodgers in a May 17 deal.
Then the Dodgers rolled out the high-leverage group to pitch the team to the bottom of the ninth inning.
The ball wound up in Blake Treinen’s hands to earn the final out. He did so, getting Francisco Alvarez to ground out to end the game.
“It was stressful. It was a grind tonight,” said catcher Will Smith. “Guys stepped up, got big outs, got us through all nine.”
The Dodgers tacked on more runs late — a two-run double from Mookie Betts, a sacrifice fly from offseason free-agent signing Teoscar Hernández, and then Kiké Hernández singled in the 10th run of the game.
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Now the Dodgers host Game 1 of the World Series on Friday.
All in.
“Obviously we’re going to celebrate tonight, as we should,” Roberts said. “I think the whole world was looking forward or hoping for this potential match-up, this showdown. It’s going to be great. They’re a very talented team. But I think for us, it’s kind of one game at a time but appreciating the fact that we’ve still got four wins to take care of business.”
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NLCS Game 6: An NL championship trophy with a lot of fingerprints on it was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.