Dodgers win behind dominant Snell, HR barrage

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers ended a lethargic, inconsistent regular play successful ascendant fashion, reeling disconnected 15 wins successful a agelong of 20 games. All told, they finished with 93 victories, their lowest full successful 7 years and a acold outcry from the wins grounds truthful galore outsiders pegged them for astatine the outset. It forced them to play successful the wild-card circular for the archetypal clip since Major League Baseball's postseason format expanded. But they believed they had recovered their champion selves heading into the playoffs.

Then -- for 7 innings, astatine slightest -- it showed up.

The Dodgers chased young Cincinnati Reds fireballer Hunter Greene aft conscionable 3 innings successful Tuesday night's Game 1 of their National League Wild Card Series. Teoscar Hernandez and Shohei Ohtani each homered doubly for L.A., 5 antithetic hitters collected aggregate hits and Blake Snell dominated successful his Dodgers postseason debut, allowing conscionable 2 runs successful 7 innings. If not for a faulty bullpen, the Dodgers' instauration to the 2025 postseason would person been a laugher. They nevertheless settled for a 10-5 victory, putting them 1 triumph distant from advancing to the NL Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

"We've been playing beauteous bully shot the past 2 weeks, 3 weeks," Hernandez said. "We cognize the things that we tin do, particularly successful large moments similar this."

Ohtani started the scoring with a 117.7 mph line-drive location tally to pb disconnected the bottommost of the first, prompting flashbacks of the changeable helium deed disconnected Dylan Cease successful his 2nd vocation postseason at-bat past fall. In the fourth, Ohtani tacked connected a 454-foot homer, becoming the archetypal subordinate successful the Statcast epoch (since 2015) to deed location runs of 450-plus feet and 115-plus mph successful the aforesaid playoff game.

In between, the Dodgers enactment unneurotic a four-run 3rd inning with the mediate of their order. Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy worked walks against Greene. Hernandez past turned connected a 1-0 slider that hung up successful the portion for a three-run homer. Tommy Edman followed with different homer disconnected different slider, this 1 connected the borderline of the wrong corner.

"That was decidedly a immense infinitesimal successful the crippled -- truly pushed momentum retired and truly made them commencement to marque the determination to get Hunter Greene retired of the game," Muncy said of that 3rd inning. "Anytime you tin bash that, that puts you successful a precise bully spot. Because Hunter Greene's a precise bully pitcher. I cognize we got to him tonight, but that's inactive not the feline you privation to person successful the crippled for a agelong time."

Snell, meanwhile, pitched longer than helium ever has successful October. The 32-year-old left-hander -- famously removed aft giving up his archetypal deed successful the sixth inning of Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, a determination that propelled the Dodgers to a title -- breezed past the Reds successful the archetypal six innings and coiled up tying a postseason vocation precocious with 9 strikeouts. Five of those came connected his changeup, a transportation that drew 15 swing-and-misses from a young, anxious radical of Reds hitters, the astir of immoderate commencement successful Snell's career. Varying the velocity ...