The redemption tour began just as the Dodgers imagined it.
With a momentous home-run swing from Shohei Ohtani.
One inning into their postseason opener Saturday night, the Dodgers were having nightmare flashbacks to this time last year, facing yet another early deficit after yet another poor performance from their Game 1 starting pitcher.
The 53,028 towel-waving fans at Dodger Stadium had been silenced. In the visiting dugout, the San Diego Padres were riding a sudden jolt of momentum.
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But then, in the kind of sequence that has eluded the Dodgers during their postseason failures of recent years, Ohtani came to the plate and, in his first career playoff game, immediately wiped the slate clean.
“We didn’t expect anything less than that,” outfielder Teoscar Hernández said. “He’s the guy that is gonna guide us through all of this.”
Indeed, in the Dodgers’ 7-5 win in the opening game of this year’s National League Division Series, Ohtani’s three-run homer in the second inning did more than erase the club’s early three-run deficit.
It restored belief in the Dodgers’ dugout. It re-energized the sellout crowd going delirious around them.
And, entering Game 2 of the best-of-five series on Sunday night back at Chavez Ravine, it exorcised some old October demons the Dodgers were starting to feel creep back in.
“He injected an absolute lightning bolt into the stadium,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “From then on it was, ‘Alright, we’ve got this. This is not the same as years past.’”
Reversing the failures of past postseasons, of course, is the defining theme of this year’s Dodgers postseason, who entered Saturday night aiming to make amends for their recent playoff history.
Two years ago, an upset NLDS elimination at the hands of these same Padres renewed questions about the Dodgers’ inability to translate regular-season dominance into playoff success.
When they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks last season, those frustrations only heightened.
“That kind of sour taste that you have when you make an early exit from the postseason, our guys are tired of it,” manager Dave Roberts said earlier this week. “A lot of people have certainly doubted us, and so I think our guys have kind of embraced that.”
That didn’t stop Saturday’s game from beginning with another disastrous first inning, rivaling the six-spot an injured Clayton Kershaw surrendered to Arizona last year.
In his MLB playoff debut, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was knocked around for five runs in three innings. The first three of them came in an ugly top of the first, when the $325 million offseason signing (whom Roberts believed might have been tipping his pitches) gave up a leadoff single to Luis Arraez, walked Fernando Tatis Jr. in an at-bat that also included a passed ball and wild pitch, then allowed Manny Machado to deliver a potential back-breaker, hanging a splitter that Machado launched to left for two-run homer and 3-0 Padres lead.
“They jumped on us, punched us in the mouth, whatever you want to call it,” catcher Will Smith said. “But we knew we weren’t out of it.”
Not with Ohtani now leading their lineup.
After Smith led off the second inning with a walk, and Gavin Lux followed with a single, the Padres had no choice but to pitch to Ohtani when he came to the plate with two outs against starter Dylan Cease.
Cease tried to begin the at-bat carefully, throwing the first two pitches well out of the zone before Ohtani fouled a fastball off his knee and called time. When Ohtani dug back in, Cease challenged him with an elevated heater, similar to the one that induced a flyout in Ohtani’s first at-bat.
This time, however, the soon-to-be three-time MVP was ready for it.
With a line-drive rocket that traveled 372 feet at almost 112 mph, Ohtani easily cleared the fence in front of the right-field pavilion, tying the score at 3-3 with one game-changing swing.
“It just got the momentum back for us,” Roberts said. “And just gave us life.”
The Dodgers wouldn’t go on to take their first lead until the fourth inning, erasing a 5-3 deficit with a three-run rally capped by Hernández’s go-ahead two-run single.
They were able to turn the game over to the bullpen from there, getting six shutout innings of relief while adding an insurance run after a careless Machado throwing error in the fifth.
But without Ohtani’s early blast, there might have been no mid-game plot twist.
After consecutive postseasons in which the Dodgers failed to battle back from similar playoff deficits, their $700 million offseason signing made sure Saturday would be different.
“I could really feel the intensity of the stadium before the game began,” Ohtnai said through interpreter Will Ireton about his MLB playoff debut. “I thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Ohtani wasn’t the only source of inspiration in the Dodgers’ come-from-behind win.
Freddie Freeman not only played through a badly sprained ankle — one that even he thought as late as Saturday morning would force him to miss the game — but delivered two hits and a surprise stolen base.
“That definitely sends a message that, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter what your name is, it doesn’t matter who you are, you better be ready to do whatever is necessary,’” Muncy said of watching Freeman. “That was big. It’s hard to put that into words to see Freddie out there for us, to know how bad he is hurting.”
The bullpen’s performance also provided a lift after Yamamoto’s early exit, culminating in a five-out, 39-pitch save from right-hander Blake Treinen that ended with a strikeout of Machado on a swing-and-miss sweeper.
“To fight back just really speaks to the character of this group,” Roberts said. “We need to fight. And that’s what we did tonight.”
Read more: Freddie Freeman’s ‘borderline miracle’ stolen base in NLDS Game 1 gives Dodgers chills
There were other examples of resiliency, too, the kind that too often have gone missing in the Dodgers’ postseason past.
The three-run fourth-inning rally that included Hernández’s go-ahead two-run single? That was sparked by a bunt single from Tommy Edman, and included a broken-bat hit from Ohtani, who finished the night two for five with three RBIs and two runs scored.
Treinen’s high-wire save in which he stranded five total baserunners? It was aided by an over-the-shoulder catch from shortstop Miguel Rojas in the eighth, and a diving snag by Lux at second base in the ninth.
“I think it speaks volumes of this team,” Rojas said. “The fire and the fight from this team is unbelievable.”
To truly rectify their annual October woes, and pair another World Series title to their pandemic-shortened 2020 championship, the Dodgers will need more consistent performances moving forward — especially from their starting rotation, which will turn to Jack Flaherty for Game 2 on Sunday.
Read more: After recent October scuffles, Dodgers aim to be ‘the ones attacking’ opposing pitchers
But the biggest question entering this postseason was whether a team that has so easily folded in past seasons could muster the resolve and intensity to be legitimate contenders this year.
After the first inning Saturday, the script seemed ominously familiar.
But then, Ohtani flipped it, ensuring this month’s potential redemption tour began with a character-defining win.
“Our guys were relentless all night,” Roberts said. “It’s hard not to panic when you’re behind, especially in a postseason game. But we did a really good job of trying to take one at-bat at a time.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
