Kiki Hernandez delivers again as Dodgers lead: ‘He’s not afraid of the moment’

LOS ANGELES – With the Los Angeles Dodgers on the brink and their season in danger of another early postseason exit, it was Kiké Hernandez who spoke up. As a young player of the perennial contenders years ago, Hernandez was known as a promising footballer, whose playing style shined as much as his jokes. He was the kind of “glue guy” who helped the Dodgers in late 2010 transform into a juggernaut.

Hernandez left and tried to make his way as a regular player before returning last July to a familiar place. Free agency this winter delivered a harsh judgment on him, as Hernandez did not sign with Los Angeles until weeks after spring training. His $4 million contract was a drop in the bucket during the Dodgers’ billion-dollar season. For months, Hernandez’s production and the evolution of his role faltered.

However, the October version of Hernandez is always changing. Twice, Hernandez has clinched that pennant distinction with a single stroke of the bat. When the Dodgers brought him back, this was the version of Hernandez they had in mind.

Through the first three games of the National League Division Series, Hernandez did not start a single game. He didn’t play at all in Game 3, when the Dodgers fell to a 2-1 deficit to the San Diego Padres and put another promising season in danger of a premature end.

Hernandez assembled a group of top players, all-stars and top prospects and let them have it.

“This is our only chance,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recalled Hernandez saying. “He would put everyone on blast and see what they were made of.”

The key “was just to keep fighting,” Mookie Betts said. The Padres staged a stress test against the injury-beleaguered Dodgers club. San Diego has angered these Dodgers and pushed them to the brink. Now it’s time for them to remember what got them the best record in baseball.

The message is summed up quite simply.

F- ‘All of them.

Three nights later, a topless Hernandez imbibed Corbel and Budweiser in a madhouse of his own making.

October Kiki showed up again, putting the Dodgers ahead with a hit and a lead they wouldn’t give up. The Dodgers’ 2-0 win in Game 5 cemented the legacy of one of the franchise’s greatest postseason champions. The comeback from 2-1 down was complete. A best-of-seven matchup awaits against the upstart New York Mets in the National League Championship Series.

Back-to-back October disasters were haunting the Dodgers. Another threatened the basis by which this expensive and talented gathering of players would be remembered. They’ve committed just $1.4 billion to winning fewer games than they did last season. The 2-1 scoreline seemed destined for a familiar ending.

They survived.

“This team, they don’t give a fuck,” Hernandez said in a television interview.

“He could be the leader of the team,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.

The football club that embodies their logo is now eight wins away from the tournament.

Before the greatest night of his baseball life, seven years ago, Hernandez envisioned it. He was gnawed by the failures of last October. The old bat remained in his mind. With the 2017 Dodgers in the hunt for a World Series berth, Hernandez focused on positive thoughts. What would he see? What was he going to say when he came?

He hit three home runs that night.

“I haven’t looked back since,” Hernandez said. The routine is stuck. He envisioned it before Game 4 on Wednesday, when he got his first start of the Series and recorded a pair of hits. Thursday night, before the winner-take-all Game 5, imagine again.

“I kept telling myself, ‘They brought you here for a reason,'” Hernandez said. “They brought you here to play in October. I wanted to get back running with this team because I really want to have a show.

He echoed this courage when he spoke to Friedman on the field before the game, telling the club engineer: “I’m going to win you this game.”

And when the club’s hitting coaches began a meeting to break down the club’s offensive plan against Yu Darvish, Hernandez spoke again. Darvish’s collection of pitches can be enchanting. “Sly,” Shohei Ohtani said this week. “He has about 20 different pitches, 10 different throwing styles,” Max Muncy said. The Dodgers have tended to sit back and pay attention to Darvish’s countless off-speed performances, waiting for an error to occur and knowing that an opportunity might arise with traffic on the bases.

The scenario played out in the second inning of Game 2 when the Dodgers loaded the bases with nobody out. They got just one run in the inning, as Darvish completed seven frames in a solid victory.

To answer in Game 5, Hernandez suggested he wanted to look for a fastball. There were too many off-speed pitches to take into account.

“They were very strong about their feelings about disagreeing with me,” Hernandez said.

He wouldn’t have to wait long to get what he was looking for. Darvish threw a fastball to Hernandez on the first pitch over the plate for his first at-bat.

Hernandez crushed it. A sold-out Dodger Stadium came back to life. Hernandez’s 14th career home run in the postseason was perhaps the most anticipated.

“He’s not afraid of this moment,” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said. “He’s here. He’s getting ready. He’s got confidence through his preparation and he’s trusting it.

“Kiki hitting a homer and making big plays is probably the least surprising thing of the night,” Gavin Lux said.

“It’s special,” Anthony Banda said. “It was built for October.”

“Some guys are built for the moment,” Muncy said. “I don’t know what it is, but he got it.”

The second-half surge that saved Hernandez’s season started with the tipoff. Martin Maldonado, the longtime big leaguer and Hernandez’s teammate with Puerto Rico in the past World Baseball Classic, mentioned during a summer conversation that he and several of his teammates needed glasses for vision problems that were not detected in the typical annual physical exam at spring training. He pressured Hernandez to get tested as well.

It proved worth it: Hernandez was diagnosed with astigmatism in his right eye, and was fitted for the glasses he’s worn ever since.

“I didn’t really realize I was seeing the shape of the pitch instead of the rotation, the spin of the pitch,” Hernandez said last month. “I don’t really know how long it had been like that. … It was a little thing that you don’t really notice in your daily life. It was hard to tell.”

Kiki Hernandez: “We didn’t come here to win the NL West. We came here to win the World Series.”

-Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) October 11, 2024

They gave him a new frame of mind and a new lens on what has been another frustrating season. Before the All-Star break and his decision to wear glasses all the time on the field, Hernandez was hitting just .191, faltering against breaking balls in particular. After that, he hit .274, and regained his best with an .821 OPS in September as he reinserted himself into the Dodgers’ plans.

They didn’t realize how important this was.

“That’s why you get through the regular season with Kiki,” Roberts said. “And then, when you get through that, you know you’re going to get the MVP.”

A defiant chorus echoed amidst the smoke of champagne and cigars. While his teammates chanted his name and sprinkled Hernandez, a playlist played a Kendrick Lamar track once, then twice.

“They don’t like us.”

The failures of last October have stuck with these Dodgers, especially when pressed against a familiar and talented foe in a star-studded Padres lineup. Perhaps it was the wounds that connected them.

Freddie Freeman took 14 at-bats during the series despite suffering a severely sprained ankle that could have put him on the injured list. Miguel Rojas did not play the final two games of this series because he aggravated a torn adductor muscle that he had played with for several months. Injuries have ruined their pitching. The division race has hardened them.

“We have a lot of FU in us,” Hernandez said. “We have a lot of people, a bunch of grown men, who want to win at all costs no matter what, no matter what it looks like.”

Facing exclusion pales in comparison. The jokes were filtered through the visitors’ clubhouse at Petco Park before Game 4 on Wednesday. The contentious talks before the winner-take-all fifth match included rounds of miniature golf.

“Everyone just said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Muncy said. “We were going to win tonight. … We were going to win the game, there’s no doubt about that.”

Muncy admitted that doing so actually brought relief. Teoscar Hernandez added his own home run to Kiki in the seventh. Behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto and a parade of Dodgers relievers, they shut out the Padres for the second straight game, ending the series with 24 straight scoreless innings.

While he enjoyed the celebration, Muncy took Hernandez’s message a step further.

“We know who we are,” Muncy said. “We are the best team in baseball and we are here to prove it.”

(Kiki Hernandez Photo: Sean M. Havey/Getty Images)