Dodgers conquer deficit and hostile environment to win series opener

Dodgers conquer deficit and hostile environment to win series opener

- BY JACK HARRIS

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ, a historically clutch performer in the postseason, hits a two-run double in the sixth inning to narrow the Dodgers’ deficit to 3-2 during their Game 1 victory.

It wasn’t an impassioned speech. But it proved to be a prescient point.

In the hours before Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Saturday night, the Dodgers’ offense was gathered for their typical pregame hitters meeting when Aaron Bates, one of the hitting coaches, spoke up and offered a reminder to the room.

In this series, Bates knew there would be moments of adversity. And in this ballpark, where 45,000 crazed Philadelphia Phillies fans have created one of the best home-field advantages in all of baseball, the Dodgers needed to be ready to react and respond.

“The intensity and the fans were going to be there early in the game,” he told them, as infielder Miguel Rojas later recalled.

“If something happens early, if Schwarber hits one 800 feet and the roof blows off this place, don’t worry about it,” he added, according to third baseman Max Muncy, “Because when they're dead silent in the seventh or eighth innings and we're winning, that’s all that’s gonna matter.”

In the nine innings that followed, that’s exactly how the script played out.

The Phillies landed an early punch, ambushing Shohei Ohtani with a three-run second inning that had Citizens Bank Park shaking on the scale of a small earthquake.

Then the Dodgers answered back, rallying to a resilient 5-3 win that gave them an all-important leg up in this best-of-five series.

"It's a message that, when you hear it, it sounds silly," Muncy said of Bates' pregame reminder.

"But, there's a lot of truth to it.

When you come into places like this, it's very hostile, it's very loud." It certainly was in the second inning, when J.T. Realmuto hit a two-run triple that opened the scoring and knocked the defending champions to the mat.