Yoshinobu Yamamoto defeated Yu Darvish in a historic homecoming of the Japanese-born starter, and the Los Angeles Dodgers got home runs from Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 on Friday night and advance to the National League Championship Series. .
Yamamoto allowed the Dodgers two hits over five innings before being pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between the heated rivals meeting in the NL Division Series for the third time in five years.
[Related: The key moments that sparked Dodgers-Padres rivalry]
The Dodgers will play Pete Alonso and the New York Mets in the best-of-seven NLCS beginning Sunday night in Los Angeles (8:15 p.m. ET on FOX).
The Dodgers won Game 5 at home for the first time since taking the 1981 NL Division Series from Houston after the season was split in half by a players’ strike. Boasting a majors-best 98-64 season record, they successfully avoided a third straight NLDS elimination.
The Padres’ big hitters came up with their season on the line. Three-time champion Luis Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado were 1-14 in Game 5 as San Diego’s final 19 batters were retired.
San Diego went scoreless in the final 24 innings of the series, dropping the last two games after taking a 2-1 lead at home.
Yamamoto and Darvish were the first Japanese-born pitchers to make the major league playoffs. The 26-year-old Yamamoto became the fifth rookie to start a hit game in Dodgers history.
Teoscar Hernández crushes a solo run to extend the Dodger lead to 2-0
Yamamoto provided the ball to a stellar bullpen that carried the Dodgers through a regular season when their starters were hit hard by injuries. Evan Phillips got five outs, followed by Profar and Machado in the seventh before Alex Vesia struck out Jackson Merrill to end the inning.
Vesia was warming up for the eighth time when he came out injured. Michael Kopech pitched a nice inning before Blake Treinen struck out three in quick succession for his second save of the series.
Tatis singled to end it as Kiké Hernández made the play after moving from center field to third base in the ninth.
Darvish, Ohtani’s 38-year-old idol, gave up a morning home run to Kiké Hernández, then sat down 14 in a row. Teoscar Hernández’s homer chased Darvish in the seventh to make it 2-0.
Kiké Hernández: ‘This showed a lot for us’
The Padres and Dodgers combined to retire 26 consecutive hitters – the longest streak in one game in postseason history.
Darvish gave up two runs and three hits in 6 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking one.
Darvish and Ohtani co-hosted last year’s World Baseball Classic in Japan, but they were rivals on Friday. Ohtani struck out three times, including a double against Darvish in a game watched Saturday morning in Japan.
Ohtani hit a three-run homer in Game 1, his first playoff game, but was largely quiet the rest of the series after becoming the first player in major league history to reach 50 homers and 50 stolen bases in a season.
The teams combined for 43 runs in the first five games of the series, but the take-it-all finish was a tense affair in front of a crowd of 53,183 that included Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James and the Hollywood team. Brad Pitt, Rob Lowe, Bryan Cranston and Jimmy Kimmel.
Dodgers’ Kiké Hernández HITS a solo home run
The Padres ended the streak without a hit since the second inning of Game 3.
Yamamoto successfully covered first base three times after grounding out, making it easy for All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman, who started after missing Game 4 with a sprained right ankle.
The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead on Kiké Hernández’s two-out double in the second. It was the 14th of the postseason for Hernández, who was brought back to the Dodgers this season to make an impact in October.
Los Angeles lost to San Diego with an 8-0 victory in Game 4 to force a homecoming game, where fans throwing balls and trash on the field caused a 12-minute delay in the loss of Game 2. A public address announcer warned fans midway through the fifth Friday not to throw objects or enter the field.
Next
The Dodgers are headed to the NLCS for the sixteenth time overall and first since 2021 when they lost to Atlanta in six games.
The Padres enter the offseason with a lot of promise for next year. They challenged the Dodgers for the NL West title until the final days of the regular season.
It is reported by the Associated Press.
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