Dodgers knock out rivals with team effort: ‘It’s relief, it’s redemption’

LOS ANGELES — It may have seemed like only a small stepping stone for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a mere National League Division Series triumph Friday night — but this victory felt different.

This one was special.

This was the Dodgers’ biggest victory in three years, and one of their greatest in 36 years, one that could lead to their first World Series parade since 1988.

This is the one that slayed the dragon to the south, the team that ruined their season two years ago, the team that had them on the brink of elimination, and the team that, frankly, frustrated the daylights out of them.

The Dodgers finally put the San Diego Padres to rest, winning 2-0, in the deciding Game 5 to advance to the National League Championship Series and a date with the New York Mets Sunday night at Dodger Stadium.

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Don’t try telling Dodgers manager Dave Roberts this was just a Division Series victory.

“It’s relief, it’s redemption,’’ Roberts said. “I wanted to beat those guys. We all wanted to beat those guys really bad.

“This is the most stress I’ve felt in quite some time.’’

Yep, you could tell in the Dodgers’ celebratory clubhouse. They didn’t have just a mere beer shower, popping a few bottles of champagne. It was a party. They ran around with shirts off, cigar smoke filling the air, and music blasting off the ceiling.

“This is big,’’ Dodgers outfielder Kevin Kiermaier said. “I believe that rivalries have calmed down over the years. Everybody is buddy-buddy. We have a lot of respect for each other. But we don’t like them, and they don’t like us.’’

It was such a huge victory, says Roberts, that it might have even topped his emotions as a player when he was on the Boston Red Sox team that overcame a 3-0 deficit in the 2004 ALCS.

“I’ll tell you, this rivals 2004 when we beat the Yankees,’’ said Roberts, whose stolen base in Game 4 of the ALCS helped jump-start the Red Sox’s comeback. “It rivals beating the Braves in 2020 to get to the World Series. This is right there with it.

“You’re talking about one of the best teams in baseball over there. It was a dogfight.’’

The Dodgers didn’t want to provide any bulletin board material, but privately, they believe the Padres are better than the Mets. They may be better than the New York Yankees and everyone that’s still alive in the American League, too.

Now that they have conquered the Padres, finally getting out of the Division Series for the first time since 2021, they believe that no one can stop them.

“We have a lot of F-you in us,’’ said Dodgers center fielder Enrique Hernandez, who continued his October magic with a second-inning homer. “We’re a bunch of 26 dudes who are all here together for one reason, and that’s to win the World Series.

“On paper, we have the best club in baseball. But we have a lot of grown men that want to win at all costs, no matter how it looks.’’

The Dodgers always believed they had the best team, but they have also painfully learned over the years that the best teams don’t always win. Sometimes, it takes more than talent and money.

“This year, man, whether it was free agency or trade or waiver claim, it just seemed like we kept adding on the right piece, after right piece, after right piece,’’ Hernandez said. “This is a ballclub that’s not just a complete ballclub, but has the character that it takes to endure a 162-game season.

“Then, we come here and play that team; they’re stacked bro. It’s a hard team to beat in October.’’

The Padres certainly had the Dodgers on the ropes, leading this series 2-1, with Game 4 at Petco Park in San Diego. But the Dodgers’ pitching staff became silent killers.

They shut out the Padres 24 consecutive innings, retiring the final 19 batters Friday, and never gave the Padres a chance to breathe.

Yes, the same pitching staff that was pummeled all season, with 10 pitchers currently on the injured list — leaving them with only three healthy starters.

But, oh, they had a bullpen that stopped the Padres’ high-powered offense.

“If you’re talking about a series MVP,’’ Roberts said, “it’s our bullpen, clearly. It was a test, and we fought. We didn’t relent, not one time.’’

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, their $325 million man, performed like the highest-paid pitcher in history with five shutout innings, giving up just two hits. The bullpen came on in the sixth, and after pitching nine shutout innings in Game 4, didn’t even permit a baserunner in the final four innings this night.

This Dodgers team is so complete that Shohei Ohtani, who will be rewarded with the MVP award in November, was a complete non-factor in the final four games of the series. He went just 3-for-18 (.167) with one RBI and 10 strikeouts after hitting a second-inning homer in Game 1. He went 0-for-4 Friday with three strikeouts, and never stole a single base in the series after stealing a career-high 59 bases in the regular season.

No matter.

“That’s why you have 26 guys,’’ Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said. “We’re not just one guy. We’re a whole team.’’

The Dodgers proved that with everyone playing a vital role in this series, making Ohtani’s struggles almost irrelevant.

“We’ve got plenty of superstars, rightfully so, but we have a lot of other quality players as well,’’ Kiermaier said. “We might not be household names as much as Ohtani, Mookie (Betts), Freddie (Freeman), but with a great team like, with so much depth, you never know who the hero is going to be on any given night.

“And those are the most dangerous teams.’

Kiermaier, told by Hernandez before the game that if Yu Darvish threw him a first-pitch fastball he’d homer, watched in disbelief when Hernandez delivered. “I was so jacked up,’’ Kiermaier said.

And, just in case the Padres had any ideas of staging a comeback, Teoscar Hernandez homered off Darvish in the seventh inning.

Enrique Hernandez actually told Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations, and Roberts that he’d personally make sure they’d win the game.

“I kept telling myself, ‘They brought you here for a reason,” Hernandez said. “They brought you here to play in October. I wanted to come back to make a run with this team because I really want to have a parade. …

“I was going to find a way to win this game for us.’’

Said Friedman: “He said before the game that he’d win us this game tonight. He backed it up.’’

Dodgers owner Mark Walter, standing off to the side of the clubhouse, watching the party, wiped his eyes and still had trouble believing what he just saw.

“That’s unbelievable,’’ Walter said. “That’s a hell of a hitting team over there. But look at us.’’

Friedman, the architect of the Dodgers’ machine, certainly is accustomed to these celebrations. This is a team that has been to the postseason 12 consecutive seasons, with seven NLCS appearances, three pennants and a World Series title.

Yet, this one, because of their epic postseason failures the past two years, tasted sweeter than the champagne dripping down their faces.

“Any time you stave off elimination,’’ Friedman said, “it feels as big as it can get because the flip side of that is going home.

“We’ve been in a little bit of a DS (Division Series) funk. For the guys that have been here, they could feel that after we got down 2-1. The new guys wanted no part of that.’’

Now, here they are, with the red-hot Mets coming to town, the lone team standing in the way of the Dodgers’ first trip to the World Series in a non-Covid season since 2018.

“We know the job’s not done,’’ said Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips. “New York’s a hot team. They had to grind to get into the postseason. But what happened here is pretty wild. It’s not like we said, ‘Hey, we’re going to shut them out the next two games. They’ll never score another run.’

“But we’re a great team.

“I think we’re proving that.’’

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