LOS ANGELES — With the Los Angeles Dodgers on the brink and their season prone to one more early postseason exit, it was Kiké Hernández who spoke. As a younger position participant for a perennial contenders years in the past, Hernández was often called a promising goofball whose recreation flashed as a lot as his jokes. He was the kind of “glue man” who helped the Dodgers of the late 2010s type right into a juggernaut.
Hernández left and tried making his manner as an on a regular basis participant earlier than returning final July to a well-known place. Free company this winter issued a harsh judgment on him, with Hernández not signing with Los Angeles till weeks into spring coaching. His $4 million contract was a drop within the bucket throughout the Dodgers’ billion-dollar offseason. For months, Hernández’s manufacturing floundered and his position developed.
But, the October model of Hernández at all times transforms. Twice, Hernández has clinched this franchise a pennant with one swing of the bat. When the Dodgers introduced him again once more, it was with that model of Hernández they’d in thoughts.
By way of the primary three video games on this Nationwide League Division Collection, Hernández didn’t begin as soon as. He didn’t play in any respect in Sport 3, when the Dodgers fell right into a 2-1 deficit towards the San Diego Padres and put one other promising season in jeopardy of an early ending.
Hernández gathered a gaggle of MVPs, All-Stars and prime prospects and allow them to have it.
“That is our one alternative,” Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts recalled Hernández saying. “He was simply mainly placing all people on blast and seeing what they’re made from.”
The important thing, Mookie Betts mentioned, “was to simply preserve combating.” The Padres had orchestrated a stress check towards a Dodgers membership beleaguered by harm. San Diego had irritated these Dodgers and pushed them to their edge. Now was their time to recollect what acquired them to the perfect document in baseball.
The message boiled down merely.
F— ’em all.
Three nights later, a shirtless Hernández imbibed on Korbel and Budweiser in a madhouse of his creation.
October Kiké had emerged once more, placing the Dodgers forward with one swing and a lead they wouldn’t give up. A 2-0 Dodgers victory in Sport 5 solely furthered the legacy of one in every of this franchise’s best postseason protagonists. A comeback from a 2-1 deficit was full. A best-of-seven bout towards the upstart New York Mets awaits within the Nationwide League Championship Collection.
Consecutive October debacles had haunted the Dodgers. One other threatened the very basis of what this costly, gifted assemblage of gamers could be remembered for. They dedicated $1.4 billion simply to win fewer video games than they’d final season. A 2-1 deficit appeared destined for a well-known ending.
They survived.
“This group,” Hernández mentioned in a tv interview, “doesn’t give a f—.”
“He could be the group captain of that group,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman mentioned.
A ballclub that embodied his mantra is now eight wins away from a championship.
Forward of the best night time of his baseball life, seven years in the past, Hernández visualized. Earlier October failures had gnawed at him. Outdated at-bats lingered in his thoughts. With the 2017 Dodgers inside a recreation of clinching a berth into the World Collection, Hernández targeted on constructive ideas. What he was going to see. What he was going to say when he got here by way of.
He slugged three residence runs that night time.
“I haven’t seemed again since then,” Hernández mentioned. The routine caught. He visualized earlier than Sport 4 on Wednesday, when he earned his first begin of the collection and logged a pair of hits. Thursday night time, forward of a winner-take-all fifth recreation, he visualized once more.
“I saved telling myself, they introduced you right here for a motive,” Hernández mentioned. “They introduced you right here to play in October. I needed to return again to make a run with this group as a result of I actually need to have a parade.”
He echoed the bravado when chatting with Friedman on the sphere earlier than the sport, telling the membership’s architect, “I’m going to win you this recreation.”
And because the membership’s hitting coaches began a gathering to interrupt down the membership’s plan of assault towards Yu Darvish, Hernández spoke once more. Darvish’s array of pitches could be mesmerizing. “Artful,” Shohei Ohtani mentioned this week. “He’s acquired like 20 completely different pitches, 10 completely different pitching types,” Max Muncy mentioned. The Dodgers had sought to sit down and be aware of Darvish’s numerous off-speed choices, ready for a mistake and figuring out that a chance with visitors on the bases might emerge.
The situation had performed out within the second inning of Sport 2 when the Dodgers loaded the bases with nobody out. They acquired only one run within the inning, as Darvish accomplished seven frames in a blowout victory.
To counter in Sport 5, Hernández urged he needed to search for a fastball. There have been too many off-speed pitches to account for.
“They have been fairly robust with their emotions about disagreeing with me,” Hernández mentioned.
He wouldn’t have to attend lengthy for what he was on the lookout for. Darvish threw Hernández a first-pitch fastball over the plate in his first at-bat.
Hernández crushed it. A sold-out Dodger Stadium roared to life. Hernández’s 14th profession postseason residence run could have been his most predictable.
“He’s not afraid of the second,” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc mentioned. “He’s right here. He prepares. He’s acquired confidence by way of his preparation and he trusts it.”
“Kiké hitting a homer and making massive performs might be the least shocking factor of the night time,” Gavin Lux mentioned.
“It’s particular,” Anthony Banda mentioned. “He’s constructed for October.”
“Some guys are constructed for the second,” Muncy mentioned. “I don’t know what it’s, however he’s acquired it.”
The second-half surge that saved Hernández’s season began with a advice. Martín Maldonado, the longtime big-league catcher and Hernández’s teammate with group Puerto Rico in previous World Baseball Classics, talked about throughout a summer season dialog that he and several other teammates required glasses for imaginative and prescient points not picked up in a typical annual bodily examination in spring coaching. He pressed Hernández to get checked out, too.
It proved worthwhile: Hernández was recognized with astigmatism in his proper eye, and fitted for glasses he’s worn ever since.
“I didn’t actually understand that I used to be seeing the form of the pitch as an alternative of the spin, rotation of the pitch,” Hernández mentioned final month. “I don’t actually understand how lengthy it’s been like that. … It was such a bit factor that you just don’t actually discover in your on a regular basis life. It was laborious to inform.”
Kiké Hernández: “We didn’t come right here to win the NL West. We got here right here to win the World Collection.”
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) October 11, 2024
They’ve given him a brand new mind set, and a recent lens on what was amounting to a different irritating season. Earlier than the All-Star break and his choice to put on glasses full-time on the sphere, Hernández hit simply .191, floundering towards breaking balls particularly. After, he hit .274, recapturing his most interesting type with an .821 OPS in September as he reinserted himself into the Dodgers’ plans.
Little did they understand how a lot that will matter.
“That’s why you type of get by way of the common season with Kiké,” Roberts mentioned. “After which once you get by way of that, you already know you’re going to get the perfect participant.”
A defiant refrain echoed amidst the bubbly and cigar smoke. As his teammates chanted his title and Hernández sprayed, a playlist performed Kendrick Lamar’s diss monitor as soon as, then twice.
“They not like us.”
The failures of previous Octobers have caught to those Dodgers, notably when pressed towards a well-known, gifted division foe within the star-filled Padres. Maybe it’s the wounds which have bonded them.
Freddie Freeman took 14 at-bats throughout this collection regardless of a badly sprained ankle that will’ve in any other case landed him on the injured listing. Miguel Rojas didn’t play the ultimate two video games of this collection as a result of he aggravated a torn adductor he’s performed with for months. Their pitching has been decimated by accidents. A division race hardened them.
“We’ve got numerous ‘F U’ in us,” Hernández mentioned. “We’ve got lots of people, a bunch of grown males, that they need to win in any respect prices irrespective of the way it comes, irrespective of the way it seems to be.”
Going through elimination paled as compared. Jokes filtered by way of the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park earlier than Wednesday’s Sport 4. The contested conversations forward of a winner-take-all Sport 5 included rounds of mini-golf.
“Everybody simply mentioned, don’t fear about it,” Muncy mentioned. “We’re going to win tonight. … We have been going to win the sport, little doubt about it.”
Really doing so, Muncy admitted, introduced reduction. Teoscar Hernández added a house run of his personal to Kiké’s within the seventh. Behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto and a parade of Dodgers relievers, they shut out the Padres for the second consecutive recreation, wrapping up the collection with 24 consecutive scoreless innings.
As he savored the celebration, Muncy took Hernández’s message a step additional.
“We all know who we’re,” Muncy mentioned. “We’re the f—ing finest group in baseball and we’re on the market to show it.”
(Photograph of Kiké Hernández: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Pictures)