LOS ANGELES — October baseball isn’t all the time a crapshoot.Typically, the game’s deepest-pocketed, most talent-rich juggernaut swats away an 83-win, small-market opponent like a pesky fly.A Los Angeles Dodgers group that had hoped to be resting up for the division collection this week performed its method out of the wild-card spherical as rapidly as potential Wednesday. They swept a Cincinnati Reds group that slipped into the postseason with the second-fewest regular-season wins of any playoff group within the wild-card period, clinching the best-of-three collection with an 8-4 victory in Recreation 2.AdvertisementFor two straight days, the Dodgers principally seemed just like the group hailed because the preseason favorites to be World Collection champs for a second straight 12 months, the group with three league MVPs on the prime of its lineup, the group with a beginning rotation so deep that Clayton Kershaw was left off the wild-card roster. The Dodgers’ offense and beginning pitching have been greater than sturdy sufficient to beat a tenuous bullpen, one which twice took breezy victories and needlessly injected moments of late-game rigidity.However this was the Reds. This was the simple half. For the advancing Dodgers, a lot more durable challenges await.[Get more Los Angeles news: Dodgers team feed]Up subsequent come the proficient, rested, playoff-tested Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodgers’ opponent for a best-of-five division collection starting Saturday at Residents Financial institution Park. The Phillies piled up 96 wins this season, received 4 of six towards the Dodgers and edged them within the race for home-field benefit and a first-round bye.AdvertisementOn Wednesday, Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts described the Phillies as a “very talented ball club” however insisted that he thinks the Dodgers “match up very well against those guys.” He contended that his squad could possibly be the sharper group early within the collection, having performed two wild-card video games whereas the Phillies had the week off.“Getting through the wild-card series kind of seamlessly like we did, I think we’re in a great spot,” he mentioned.If the efficiency of the beginning rotation the previous two nights is any indication, the Dodgers will arrive in Philadelphia fists bared, prepared for a combat. Within the wild-card spherical, the Reds have been unable to make Roberts pay for the choice to save lots of Ohtani to begin Recreation 1 towards the Phillies.AdvertisementIn their outings towards Cincinnati, Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto each secured 20-plus outs, struck out nine-plus batters and surrendered 5 or fewer hits. That’s the primary time in MLB postseason historical past, per OptaSTATS, {that a} group’s starters have completed that in back-to-back video games.Yamamoto was particularly resilient Wednesday after the Reds loaded the bases with no person out and the Dodgers main by a single run within the prime of the sixth. He caught a break when Austin Hays’ one-hop liner discovered Mookie Betts’ glove at shortstop and Betts astutely threw residence to power out the third-base runner. Then Yamamoto locked in and struck out each Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz on sharp curveballs beneath the zone.Via an interpreter, Yamamoto mentioned postgame that he frightened he was “throwing too many curveballs” throughout that sequence, however he mentioned he trusted catcher Ben Rortvedt. Solely after De La Cruz checked his swing however couldn’t maintain up at strike three did Yamamoto concede, “That was a good call.”And as deep because the Dodgers’ beginning rotation is, so is their lineup.AdvertisementJust two video games into this postseason, October heroes of the previous are heating up, most notably Kiké Hernandez. After the Dodgers fell behind within the first inning on two unearned runs made potential by a Teoscar Hernandez error, Kiké helped his group recuperate. Within the fourth, he drove within the tying run with a ringing double within the hole, then scored the go-ahead run on a Miguel Rojas single, pumping his fist as he stepped on residence plate.The Dodgers star who struggled most over the course of the common season has additionally caught hearth on the supreme time. Betts had 4 hits Wednesday, together with three doubles, which tied a Dodgers single-game postseason file courting to 1953.“Better late than never,” he mentioned afterward with a smile. “I went through arguably one of the worst years of my career. But I think it really made me mentally tough. So now there’s just a different level of focus. And it’s not really on myself. It’s more on winning the game.”Within the Recreation 2 victory, practically everybody within the lineup contributed. Teoscar Hernandez hit a two-run double. Rojas and Rortvedt had two hits apiece. It’s no marvel that earlier than the sport, Reds supervisor Terry Francona scoffed on the thought of deliberately strolling Ohtani, who singled and scored a run.Commercial“You’re kidding, right?” he mentioned. “Have you heard of Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman? … You start walking people in that lineup, and you’re asking for trouble.”But when there’s one motive for concern heading into the Philadelphia collection, it’s the identical one which plagued the Dodgers all through the second half. Their relievers can’t be trusted to guard large leads, not to mention small ones in high-leverage conditions.On Tuesday in Recreation 1, relievers Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer frittered away a lot of an eight-run lead over the course of a 59-pitch prime of the eighth inning. Boos rained down from the Dodger Stadium crowd after Dreyer walked in a run, the Reds’ third of the body, to permit Cincinnati to ship the tying run to the on-deck circle.AdvertisementA sample emerged in Recreation 2, when Roberts referred to as starter Emmet Sheehan within the prime of the eighth with the Dodgers main 8-2. Sheehan walked the bases loaded, then yielded a base hit and a sacrifice fly.When Sheehan practically hit Will Benson with a pitch on an 0-2 rely, Roberts had seen sufficient. He pulled Sheehan in the course of the at-bat and introduced on Vesia, who sandwiched two strikeouts round a stroll to wriggle out of the inning with an 8-4 lead intact.Why didn’t Roberts enable Sheehan to complete pitching to Benson? The skipper conceded postgame that Sheehan “wasn’t sharp” and mentioned he felt higher about Vesia towards the right-handed hitters on deck. Would Roberts hesitate earlier than turning to Sheehan in future postseason video games? No, the supervisor gave Sheehan his vote of confidence.“I believe in him,” he mentioned. “I really do.”AdvertisementThe one pitcher who earned Roberts’ belief on this wild-card sweep was starter-turned-reliever Roki Sasaki, who completed off the Reds with a pair of strikeouts within the ninth inning Wednesday. Requested if Sasaki can be the Dodgers’ postseason nearer shifting ahead, Roberts gave a non-answer however acknowledged, “I don’t think the moment is going to be too big for Roki.”With the Phillies looming, Sasaki will should be prepared for greater moments as October rolls on. For the Dodgers, the Reds have been a velocity bump.Now comes the exhausting half.
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MLB playoffs 2025: With wild-card sweep, Dodgers sail via to NLDS vs. Phillies … and now the exhausting half begins
