The Dodgers overcame recent postseason disappointment with a NLDS Game 5 win over the Padres

Blake Treinen threw his hands in the air. His teammates poured from the dugout and engulfed him near the mound.

Around them, the combined force of 53,000 fans accustomed to October disappointment and heartbreak, roared in delirious unison.

And not for the last time this fall.

Not after a nearly flawless performance from their ballclub on Friday.

With a 2-0 loss to the San Diego Padres in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, the Dodgers did more than eliminate their Southern California rivals and advance to the NL Championship Series. Staring at a third straight possible NLDS exit, they banded together, shutting down the Padres' powerhouse lineup and hoisting some insane monsters in the process.

“It's a relief,” manager Dave Roberts said, cigar in hand, during his postgame news conference. “It's liberation.”

“I think we're all sick of it,” added infielder Gavin Lux. “We want to change the narrative.”

In fact, in the last two years and three of the last five, the Dodgers have failed to produce a moment like Friday's.

In 2019, 2022 and 2023, they saw division-winning, 100-win ballclubs crash out of the playoffs in the best-of-five division rounds. Even in 2020, when they won a World Series, their NLDS win came in a neutral-site ballpark in front of zero fans.

This year, however, was different. And Friday's win, facing the Dodgers' second straight elimination after falling two games into one, was pure catharsis.

“I'm not going to lie to you, it's a little bit of a relief,” third baseman Max Muncie said. “But this year it's a different team. There's a lot of fight… we're going to win this game, no doubt about it.”

In the Dodgers' first postseason series clincher in front of a home crowd since 2013, that inner belief was evident from the start.

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1. Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen, center, celebrates with teammates after the team's NLDS Game 5 victory over the Padres Friday night at Dodger Stadium. 2. Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto celebrates after retiring the team in the third inning 3. Teoscar Hernandez, left, celebrates with Shohei Ohtani after hitting a solo home run. 4. Kike Hernandez celebrates with Dodgers teammate Mookie Betts after hitting a solo home run in the second inning. 5. Dodgers reliever Alex Vecia celebrates after striking out Jackson Merrill in the final out of the seventh inning. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Dodgers' $325-million offseason assignment to start Game 5, set the tone even after he apparently tipped his pitches in a three-inning, five-run clunker in Game 1.

The 26-year-old right-hander left the side in the first innings. Caught a two-out walk in the second. Then, when the Padres mounted their biggest threat at third, with two runners on and one out, he threw a 3-and-1 slider down the zone that Fernando Tatis Jr. turned into a double play.

“He was outstanding tonight,” Roberts said. “I knew he wouldn't get away from this place.”

In a more predictable development, Kike Hernandez also rose to the occasion, having the kind of postseason impact the club envisioned when they re-signed him in the offseason.

In the bottom of the second, after a double play by Will Smith sucked some life out of the crowd, Hernandez went looking for a first-pitch fastball from Padres starter Yu Darvish. When he got it, he connected on a solo home run into the top of the left-field pavilion.

“I kept telling myself, 'They brought you here for a reason,'” said Hernandez, who is batting .340 in his last 35 playoff games, dating to the 2020 postseason in which he won a World Series with the Dodgers.

“I wanted to get back to making runs with this team,” Hernandez added. “Because I really want to have a parade.”

From there, Dervish was dominant—until he wasn't.

Darvish extended his success against his former Dodgers team after retiring 14 consecutive batters following Hernandez's homer — he had a career 2.27 earned-run average against them in the regular season and held them to one run over seven innings in the Padres' Game 2 victory. — They took the veteran right-hander deep into the seventh again.

This time, it was courtesy of the other Hernandez in the Dodgers lineup.

On a 2-and-1 count, Teoscar Hernandez got a slider over the plate. After depositing a line drive into the left-field seats, he swung his bat away with one hand. Chavez Ravine was shaken by the epidemic that began.

“I've got a guy here who loves the moment, too,” Keeke said in his postgame press conference, with Teoskar sitting next to him. “I told him before Game 4, [it had] Never in the history of this game, two Hernandez going deep in the same game in the playoffs.”

Teoscar Hernandez celebrates after hitting a solo home run during the Dodgers' 2-0 win over the San Diego Padres in Game 5 of the NLDS on Friday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Meanwhile, the pitching staff gave the Padres no way back, completing the series with back-to-back shutouts and a stunning streak of 24 consecutive scoreless innings, a team playoff record.

Yamamoto handled his fastball with finesse and fired off a dizzying flurry of sliders, curveballs and splitters, producing a five-inning outing that the Dodgers had hoped for and then some.

Evan Phillips then got five outs, pumping up the ballpark as he left the mound after a strikeout by Manny Machado, who had hit two balls on the warning track earlier in the game but finished the series three-for-20.

A curse, screamed Alex Vecia as a vein popped out of his neck after striking out Jackson Merrill to end the seventh.

“We know that the postseason goes through the bullpen,” Phillips said. “Through all the ups and downs throughout the year, we know we're headed toward this moment.”

There was a nervous sequence at the start of the eighth, when Vecia – who returned for the second inning with the left-hander strung up – called a trainer during warm-ups and left with an apparent injury.

Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech celebrates during the eighth inning of the Dodgers' NLDS Game 5 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

That forced Roberts to go to hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech earlier than he did, for a matchup that better suited the left-handed Vecia.

no matter Kopech retired the team in order, punctuating the inning by blasting a 102 mph fastball past Jake Cronenworth. Trinen took care of the ninth, setting up an NLCS meeting with the New York Mets that begins Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

Eight more wins still separate the Dodgers from winning the World Series, which they haven't accomplished in a full season since 1988.

But as for a postseason redemption, their victory Friday night served as a monumental and much-anticipated first step in the wake of their early elimination in the most recent postseason.

“There's a lot of 'F-U' in us,” Hernandez told Kike. “We've overcome a lot of adversity not just in the season, but in this series. But we managed to come out on top and that's the only thing that matters.”