The Dodgers showed they are more than Shohei Ohtani in the NLDS win

LOS ANGELES – It may have seemed like a small stepping stone for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a mere National League Division Series victory Friday night – but this victory felt different.

This one was special.

It was the Dodgers' biggest win in three years, and one of their best in 36 years, leading to their first World Series parade since 1988.

This is the team that killed the Dragons in the South, the team that ruined their season two years ago, the team that was on the brink of elimination, and the team that, obviously, disappointed the daylights out of them.

The Dodgers finally put the San Diego Padres to rest, winning 2-0, to decide Game 5 to advance to the National League Championship Series and a date with the New York Mets on Sunday night at Dodger Stadium.

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Don't try to tell Dodgers manager Dave Roberts it was just a Division Series win.

“It's a relief, it's a release,” Roberts said. “I wanted to kill those people. We all wanted to beat those guys really bad.

“This is the most pressure I've felt in quite some time.”

Yes, you can say that in the Dodgers' celebratory clubhouse. They didn't just have a beer shower, popping a few bottles of champagne. It was a party. They were running around with their shirts off, cigar smoke filling the air and music blasting from the ceiling.

“It's big,” Dodgers outfielder Kevin Kiermaier said. “I believe the rivalry has calmed down over the years. Everyone is friends. We have a lot of respect for each other. But we don't like them, and they don't like us.''

It was such a big win, Roberts said, that it also topped his passion as a player when he was on the Boston Red Sox team that overcame a 3-0 deficit in the 2004 ALCS.

“I'll tell you, this rivalry is 2004 when we beat the Yankees,” said Roberts, whose stolen base in Game 4 of the ALCS helped jump-start the Red Sox's comeback. “It beat the Braves in 2020 to go to the World Series. This is right with it.

“You're talking about one of the best teams in baseball out there. It was a dogfight.''

The Dodgers didn't want to provide any bulletin board material, but personally, they believe the Padres are better than the Mets. They might be better than the New York Yankees and everyone else still alive in the American League.

Now that they've beaten the Padres, finally out of the Division Series for the first time since 2021, they believe no one can stop them.

“We have a lot of F-U,” said Dodgers center fielder Enrique Hernandez, who continued his October magic with a second-inning homer. “We're a bunch of 26 friends who are here together for one reason, and that's to win the World Series.

“On paper, we have the best club in baseball. But we have a lot of grown men who want to win at all costs, whatever that looks like.''

The Dodgers always believed they had the best team, but they painfully learned over the years that the best teams don't always win. Sometimes, it takes more than talent and money.

“This year, man, whether it's free agency or trades or waiver claims, it seems like we keep adding right piece, after right piece, after right piece,” Hernandez said. “This is a ballclub that's not just a complete ballclub, it has the character it takes to endure a 162-game season.

“Then, we come here and play that team; They are stacked bro. It's hard to beat a team in October.''

The Padres, who lead the series 2-1 with Game 4 at Petco Park in San Diego, certainly had the Dodgers on the ropes. But the Dodgers' pitching staff became the silent killer.

They shut out the Padres in 24 straight innings, retired the final 19 batters Friday, and never gave the Padres a chance to breathe.

Yes, the same pitching staff that has struggled all season, currently has 10 pitchers on the injured list — leaving them with just three healthy starters.

But, oh, they had a bullpen that stopped the Padres' high-powered offense.

“If you're talking about a Series MVP,” Roberts said, “it's our bullpen, obviously. It was a test and we battled. We didn't give up, not once.''

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their $325 million man, performed like the highest paid pitcher in history with five shutout innings, giving up just two hits. The bullpen came into the sixth, and after pitching nine shutout innings in Game 4, didn't allow a baserunner in the final four innings tonight.

This Dodgers team is so complete that Shohei Ohtani, who will be awarded the MVP award in November, was a complete non-factor in the last four games of the series. He went just 3-for-18 (.167) with one RBI after hitting a second-inning homer in Game 1. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on Friday, and never stole a base in the series. After stealing a career-high 59 bases in the regular season.

no matter

“So you have 26 guys,” Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said. “We are not just a people. We are the whole team.''

The Dodgers proved that everyone played an important role in this series, making Ohtani's struggles almost irrelevant.

“We have a lot of superstars, of course, but we also have a lot of quality players,” Kiermaier said. “We may not be household names like Ohtani, Mookie (Bates), Freddie (Freeman), but with a great team with that much depth, you never know who's going to be the hero on any given night.

“And they are the most dangerous team.”

Before the game, Hernandez said Kiermaier would have homered if Yu Darvish had thrown him a first-pitch fastball, with Hernandez watching in disbelief during the delivery. “I was so jacked up,” Kiermaier said.

And, if the Padres had any idea of ​​a comeback, Teoscar Hernandez walked off Darvish in the seventh inning.

Enrique Hernandez actually told Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, and Roberts that he would personally make sure they won the game.

“I kept telling myself, 'They brought you here for a reason,'” Hernandez said. “They brought you here to play in October. I wanted to come back to make a run with this team because I really want to have a parade. …

“I was going to find a way for us to win this game.”

Friedman said: “He said before the game that he was going to win us this game tonight. He backed it up.''

Dodgers owner Mark Walter, standing by the clubhouse watching the party, wiped his eyes and still had trouble believing what he saw.

“It's unbelievable,” Walter said. “There's a hitting team. But look at us.''

Friedman, the architect of the Dodgers machine, is certainly used to this celebration. This is a team with 12 consecutive NLCS appearances, three pennants and one World Series title.

Still, this one, given their epic postseason failures the past two years, tastes sweeter than the champagne dribbled down their faces.

“Anytime you stop eliminating,” Friedman said, “it feels as big as it can get because the flip side of it is going home.

“We've been in a little bit of a DS (Division Series) funk. The boys who came here could feel that after we went 2-1 down. The new boys wanted no part of it.''

Now, here they are, the red-hot Mets coming to town, the only team since 2018 standing in the way of the Dodgers' first trip to the World Series in a non-Covid season.

“We know the job's not done,” Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips said. “New York is a hot team. They had to grind to get into the postseason. But what happened here is wild. It's not like we said, 'Hey, we're going to shut them down the next two games. They will never run again.'

“But we're a great team.

“I think we're proving that.”

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