Dodgers 2, Padres 0 – 2024 NLDS Game 5: The Dodgers head to the NLCS behind Enrique, Teoscar, Yamamoto, and the pen

Chad Moriyama 10/11/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

A decisive Game 5 between division rivals that genuinely seem to hate each other in the Dodgers and Padres. Not much more baseball fans could ask for.

After wild scoring affairs between these two sides, this was decidedly a pitchers’ duel between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Yu Darvish, with both offenses struggling to put together rallies, much less get runs. However, the Dodgers did do damage against Darvish the easy way behind an early Enrique Hernandez homer and a late Teoscar Hernandez homer to take the lead. Meanwhile, Yamamoto was putting up zeroes, and then the pen that was coming off a shutout combined to get four scoreless to complete yet another shutout for a 2-0 victory.

Go crazy.

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Alright, so Yamamoto was back on the mound for the Dodgers against a team that he had never even really had a good start against. Most importantly, he struggled in the early innings in all those outings, but he reversed that trend today.

Yamamoto started with a clean 10-pitch inning in the 1st, then in the 2nd Manny Machado hit a ball to the warning track and he issued a two-out walk, but still a 14-pitch scoreless frame.

Next time out, he ran into his first trouble of the game, and it was a massive jam considering the players involved. With one down, he gave up back-to-back singles to Kyle Higashioka and Luis Arraez, which brought up Fernando Tatis Jr. He got behind him in the count 3-1, but then somehow managed to induce a groundball double play to escape potential disaster.

In the 4th, Machado hit another ball to the warning track, just to ruin my heart health. However, it was a 1-2-3 inning on just 10 pitches as well. Then he got a 1-2-3 frame on 16 pitches in the 5th to close.

That said, he was starting to miss location, and with the lineup about to turn over, it seemed like the right move by Dave Roberts to take him out at this point.

With the season on the line, Yamamoto delivered exactly what was needed: 5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K, 63 Pitches.

On the other side was Darvish, who was dominant in the Game 2 victory over the Dodgers to get the Padres back into the series, and who has handled the team in his career.

While he faced a pair of 3-2 counts and then gave up a two-out single in the 1st, there wasn’t any damage. It looked like that trend might continue in the 2nd after a walk was erased by a double play. Thankfully, who else but Enrique came up with another massive postseason homer, obliterating a ball halfway up the pavilion in left to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Unfortunately, after Darvish gave up this run, he then retired 13 batters in a row to get through the 6th. Less than ideal.

Made it quite the nail-biter.

And so, we go back to the Dodgers pen.

Evan Phillips started in the 6th, thankfully setting the side down in order on 15 pitches. In a surprising move, Dave let Phillips start the 7th as well and he responded by getting both the lefty (bad matchup) Jurickson Profar and Machado to strikeout.

That brought in Alex Vesia, who notched an emphatic strikeout of Jackson Merrill and then went ballistic to end the 7th.

At that point, Darvish was still in during the 7th, and he started by extending his batters retired streak to 14. However, it wouldn’t be 15, as Teoscar annihilated a no-doubter to left for a 2-0 lead.

Darvish got another out, then gave way to Jason Adam, who gave up a single but nothing else to close the 7th. Adam then got two outs in the 8th, before Tanner Scott entered yet again and struck out Shohei Ohtani.

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Meanwhile, Vesia was going to come back out for the 8th, but during warmups, something went wrong and he had to exit the game. That brought in Michael Kopech, getting two outs on six pitches and then disposing of Jake Cronenworth on three to end the inning. 102 mph? Yeah, boy.

While I would’ve let him go, it was Blake Treinen to close things out in the 9th. He got a groundout to start, then a flyout, which brought Tatis up. All he did was groundout on the first pitch to end it, an appropriate ending to seal the victory.

Relief, man.

LET’S FUCKING GO

TO THE NLCS

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Obviously, the Dodgers win the 2024 NLDS with a 3-2 record.

There isn’t much time for rest before the NLCS, as they get a day off before the Mets come to Dodger Stadium for Game 1 at 2:15 PM HT/5:15 PM PT/8:15 PM ET on FOX. I dunno who’s starting yet.

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