The Los Angeles Dodgers will avoid upsets in the NLDS for the third year in a row.
With a tight 2-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 5 at home on Friday, the Dodgers won their first playoff series in the current postseason format. They have lost in the NLDS each of the last two seasons to wild-card teams.
This is Shohei Ohtani's first MLB postseason victory.
The Dodgers' Yoshinobu Yamamoto defeated the Padres' Yu Darvish in a historic playoff matchup featuring Japanese-born starters, and the Los Angeles Dodgers scored home runs from Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández to defeat the San Diego Padres 2-0 on Friday and advance to the Nations League Cup.
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Enrique Hernández #8 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates with Mookie Betts #50, Shohei Ohtani #17 and Teoscar Hernández #37 after a solo home run in the second inning during Game 5 of the Division Series presented by Booking.com between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Friday, October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photos by Daniel Shirey/MLB via Getty Images)
Yamamoto allowed the Dodgers two hits over five innings before being pulled after 63 pitches in the deciding Game 5 between the fierce NL West rivals, who met in the Division Series for the third time in five years.
Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers will play as a wild card New York Mets in the best of seven NLCS tournaments starting Sunday night in Los Angeles.
The Dodgers won the decisive Game 5 at home for the first time since winning the NL Division Series against Houston in 1981 after the season was split in half by a players' strike. Boasting a majors-best regular-season record of 98-64, they successfully avoided a third straight elimination from the NLDS.
The Padres' best hitters went bankrupt as their season hung in the balance. Three-time batting champion Luis Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado were 1 for 14 in the fifth as Los Angeles pitchers retired the final 19 batters.
San Diego did not score points for the final 24 rounds of the series, losing the last two games after taking a 2-1 lead at home.
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Teoscar Hernández #37 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates after hitting a solo home run against the San Diego Padres during the seventh inning of Game 5 of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Yamamoto and Darvish were the first Japanese-born starting pitchers to face each other in major league playoff history. Yamamoto, 26, was the fifth rookie in Dodgers history to start a winner-take-all game.
Darvish, 38, Ohtani's childhood idol, gave up an early home run to Kiké Hernández and then hit 14 straight hits. Teoscar Hernández's homer caught Darvish in the seventh to make it 2-0.
The Padres and Dodgers combined to retire 26 consecutive batters, the longest single-game streak in postseason history.
Darvish gave up two runs and three hits in 6 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking one.
Darvish and Ohtani combined to help Japan win last year's World Baseball Classic, but they were competitive on Friday. Ohtani struck out three times, including twice against Darvish in a game watched Saturday morning in Japan.
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Alex Vesia #51 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after striking out Jackson Merrill (not pictured) of the San Diego Padres to end the seventh inning of Game 5 of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Harry How/Getty Images)
The teams combined to score 43 runs in the first five games of the series, but the winner-takes-all finale was a tense game in front of a sellout crowd of 53,183, including Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and the Hollywood contingent of Brad Pitt, Rob Lowe, Bryan Cranston and Jimmy Kimmel.
The Dodgers are headed to the NLCS for the 16th time overall and the first time since 2021, when they lost to Atlanta in six games.
The Padres enter the offseason with plenty of promise for next year. They were competing with the Dodgers for the NL West title until the final days of the regular season.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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