The Los Angeles Dodgers took a 2-1 lead in the NLCS on Wednesday with a dominant 8-0 win, starting with a scoreless start by Walker Buehler and ending, for all intents and purposes, with a towering homer from Shohei Ohtani.
After dominating in Game 1 and having that reversed in Game 2, the Dodgers showed their earlier form. Buehler wasn’t efficient, throwing 90 pitches in only four innings of work, but he proved elusive for the Mets, with 18 swinging strikes. After that, the Dodgers bullpen did its thing. The Dodgers have now thrown shutouts in four of their past five games.
Meanwhile, the offense hit early with a two-run rally in the second inning and hit hard in the eighth, when Ohtani continued his wild run of being anemic with the bases empty (0-for-22 with 11 strikeouts) and a steamroller with runners on base (7-for-9 with two homers). His three-run homer put the Dodgers up 7-0 and allowed the team to rest its remaining late-inning arms in the eighth and ninth.
Kiké Hernández contributed his 15th career postseason homer, which moves him into a tie for 18th all time. Max Muncy clobbered his 13th postseason homer, tying Corey Seager and Justin Turner for the Dodgers’ all-time lead. (Hernández hit five of his with the Boston Red Sox.)
The Mets will next try to keep pace in Game 4, with Jose Quintana scheduled to face Yoshinobu Yamamoto at Citi Field at 8:08 p.m. ET Thursday.
Here’s how it all went down via Yahoo Sports:
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