by Megan Garcia
The Dodgers weren’t fazed by the unfamiliarity of Kodai Senga. Their success against the Mets starter was up to them, and them only.
Max Muncy summed up the Dodgers’ approach against the right-hander ahead of Game 1 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday: “He’s going to go as long as we let him go.”
Senga didn’t go far.
The Dodger offense pushed him out of the game after scoring three runs on two hits and four walks in 1 1/3 innings. It put the wheels in motion for the Dodgers’ 9–0 win.
“I just thought tonight we kind of checked down and got some big base hits,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Whether moving a guy over, moving him up, and then getting a knock. I just thought all night long we were really stubborn.
Senga located seven strikes in his 23-pitch first inning that brought seven batters to the plate. Muncy delivered a two-run single to put the Dodgers up 2–0 early.
But it was Shohei Ohtani’s RBI single with one out in the second inning that was the final blow to Senga’s pitching line.
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The Dodgers’ game plan against the right-hander — who was making his third start of the year — now has them in control of the series.
And they did it with only one extra-base hit.
“It’s very hard to do in the postseason,” said Freddie Freeman, who went 2-for-3. “We had a good approach. We walked out and capitalized on some mistakes, and we did a good job overall.”
The Dodgers had zero intentions to let their foot off the gas pedal against the Mets. The offense scored its largest output in a single game since the 2021 postseason.
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The Dodger offense continued to work on the Mets bullpen when Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman and Ohtani hit a trio of singles in the fourth to add three more runs to the lead.
It didn’t stop there.
Mookie Betts, one of the hottest hitters for the Dodgers in the postseason, also had his turn in the offensive outburst. His bases-clearing double in the eighth gave the Dodgers a nine-run lead over the Mets. That gave the Dodgers a 9–0 lead.
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“We want to stay on that high,” Betts said. “We didn’t try to reset (after the NLDS).”
NLCS: The Dodgers keep their foot on the offensive gas pedal in Game 1 was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.