When the Dodgers dug into their lineup’s postseason problems at the end of last season, they noticed a strange October-wide trend.
Teams that swung freely seemed to advance more often in the playoffs, while more disciplined clubs like the Dodgers tended to flame out.
It was an observation that stuck with some Dodgers hitters, third baseman Max Muncy among them, over another long winter last year.
“The teams that are making it to the World Series, they’re going up there and they’re getting their swings off,” Muncy told Foul Territory last October, “whereas we’re being too disciplined.”
Entering this postseason, it led to a question: Should the notoriously selective Dodgers’ lineup stick to their picky approach? Or should they turn the bats loose and get more aggressive than they are in the regular season?
The answer, as Muncy explained during the National League Division Series, was definitive.
“Go out there and play our game,” he declared.
Two weeks later, it has helped move the Dodgers to the doorstep of the World Series.
As they’ve done all October, the Dodgers grinded at-bats, took walks and hit their way to a 10-2 win over the New York Mets on Thursday night, taking a 3-1 lead in the NL Championship Series with a chance to secure the pennant in Friday’s Game 5.
While the star unit of this Dodgers run has been their shutdown bullpen, the Dodgers offense has quietly turned the page from their recent postseason struggles as well.
Entering these playoffs, the Dodgers had failed to eclipse five runs in six-straight postseason games. After Thursday, they’ve done it in six of nine playoff games this year.
Much of that production has come via the long ball. The Dodgers’ 15 home runs this month are most in these playoffs, a total that grew by two Thursday after Shohei Ohtani opened the scoring with a leadoff shot before Mookie Betts went deep in the sixth inning to help put the game away.
However, the Dodgers have built many big innings too. Their .243 team batting average is best among teams that advanced past the wild-card round this October. Their 44 total walks rank third, just one behind the Mets and New York Yankees. They’ve also made sure to cash in on all that traffic, recording 18 two-out RBIs (trailing only the Mets, who have played two more games than the Dodgers this postseason) and a stellar .329 batting average with runners in scoring position (shaking another bugaboo that doomed them in past postseasons).
Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto prepares to deliver a pitch in the second inning of Game 4 of the NLCS against the Mets.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
And on Thursday, against a veteran starter in Jose Quintana who found success against hitters late in the season primarily by generating chase, all of those traits were on display.
Ohtani ambushed him in the game’s first at-bat, whacking the second throw he saw — a cutter down the middle — into the Mets bullpen for his third postseason home run.
From there, though, the Dodgers took pitches (forcing Quintana to throw 83 in just 3 ⅓ innings) and worked counts (getting to two balls in 20 of their first 30 at-bats). They manufactured two runs in the second, then two more in the third. And, coupled with a two-run, 4 ⅓ inning start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they handed a comfortable 5-2 lead off to their bullpen.
Fittingly, it is Muncy who has best embodied the Dodgers’ meticulous approach.
He entered Thursday having reached safely in eight consecutive trips to the plate, then set an MLB postseason record by running the streak to 12 with three walks in the first five innings and a single in the seventh.
While Muncy has three home runs in the playoffs, he has also “down-shifted,” as Roberts put it, for several key hits in the series. His nine walks this October, meanwhile, trail only Mets slugger Pete Alonso for most in the playoffs.
Over the last two nights, however, Ohtani has gotten aboard in six of his 11 trips to the plate, after his first-inning home run Thursday with three walks in his next three plate appearances.
Shohei Ohtani leads off the game with a home run in the Dodgers’ win over the Mets in Game 4 of the NLCS at Citi Field on Thursday night.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Then there’s Tommy Edman, who is quietly making a case for the NLCS Most Valuable Player award.
The switch-hitting trade deadline acquisition was bumped up to the cleanup spot Thursday — the result of Freddie Freeman missing just his second game of the playoffs with a sprained ankle — and delivered an RBI double in the third inning and two-run two-bagger in the eighth.
Edman is now batting .438 (seven-for-16) in the series with seven RBIs. He has also filled in seamlessly on defense for injured shortstop Miguel Rojas, preserving an early 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third Thursday by making a spinning throw to second on a ball deep in the hole for an inning-ending fielder’s choice.
If all that wasn’t enough, the Dodgers also made some team postseason history in this NLCS. According to MLB researcher Sarah Langs, the team’s 31 walks so far this series are the most by a club over a four-game stretch in the playoffs.
It all traces back to the pivotal decision the Dodgers made at the start of these playoffs, sticking to their regular-season strengths even in the wake of their recent October failures.
As a result, they now have three chances to punch their ticket to the Fall Classic.
And if they get there, it’s fair to assume they won’t be changing their approach at the plate.
