The Los Angeles Dodgers have defeated the New York Mets, 8-0, in Game 3 of the NLCS. This gives the Dodgers a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.
Kiké the playoff beast
The Dodgers plated two runs in the second inning with some help from shoddy Mets defense, though the Dodgers deserve credit for putting the ball in play. The runs scored on an infield single and a sac fly.
Things opened up in the sixth for the Dodgers, though, when their nine-hole hitter went yard. Enrique Hernández (or "Kiké," depending where you look) hit a home run to left field with a runner on:
That made the score 4-0 Dodgers and with that breathing room, it felt pretty elementary from there.
Hernández isn't one of those diminutive hitters with no power or anything. He's hit at least 20 homers in a season twice before and had 12 home runs in 362 at-bats in the regular season in 2024. Still, he has 120 career regular-season home runs in 1,183 games. He's not exactly Albert Pujols up there.
Except in the playoffs, he kind of is. This was his 78th career playoff game and that home run was his 15th in 198 at-bats.
He becomes the 20th player to hit at least 15 postseason home runs in MLB history. The only other players with fewer than 200 at-bats on the list are Nelson Cruz (18 HR, 187 AB), Bryce Harper (17 HR, 193 AB) and Babe Ruth (15 HR, 129 AB).
Ohtani puts the game away
Though it was incredibly likely the Mets were going to come back from a four-run deficit with two innings to go anyway, Shohei Ohtani put this thing to bed in the top of the eighth with a moonshot down the right-field line.
That was a three-run blast. It was his second career playoff home run. He also hit a three-run shot in Game 1 of the NLDS. Much has been made about his woes hitting with the bases empty versus how amazing he's been with runners on base. Sure enough, Ohtani went 0 for 3 with a walk when there were no runners on base this game. This at-bat was his only one with runners on. It's a remarkable coincidence more than a trend, but it sure is getting funny.
The line right now for Ohtani with runners on base: 7 for 9 with two homers and eight RBI. With the bases empty? He's 0 for 22.
Buehler guts through four
Dodgers starting pitcher Walker Buehler was 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA in his 16 starts this season, his first in returning from Tommy John surgery. He was touched up for six runs in the second inning in his start in the NLDS in San Diego, too. This time around, it looked like things might unravel in the second inning again.
Walker buckled down, though. With the bases loaded and one out, he struck out Francisco Alvarez and Mets superstar Francisco Lindor to end the inning with zero runs scored. He was able to strand two more runners in the third, too.
He would end up getting through four scoreless innings and that's just about all the Dodgers were asking for from him. It was a lot of hard work in just four innings, but the zeroes on the scoreboard were what mattered most.
Buehler was missing bats, too. He struck out six -- a 13.5 K/9 rate, compared to his regular-season 7.6 -- and got 18 swings and misses. That's the highest figure for the first four innings of any start of his entire career (via MLB.com).
Sloppiness early for both sides
The ALCS has provided some sloppy and, frankly, poorly played baseball games. Early on in this thing in the live blog, I quipped that the ALCS was contagious. There was an error and several bobbles in the second inning by both sides. Mets center fielder Tyrone Taylor made a spectacular catch on the warning track, but that came along with a Starling Marte collision and both players were fortunate to escape unscathed.
Things did settle down, though. Fortunately, nearly all the sloppiness was very early in the game.
Missed Mets opportunities
As noted in the Buehler section, the Mets left the bases loaded in the second and two runners on in the third. In the sixth inning, Marte singled and J.D. Martinez walked to give the Mets a little life with two runners on and one out. Jose Iglesias promptly hit into a double play to end the inning.
The Mets weren't starving for baserunners. They just couldn't get them home. They were 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners.
It should be noted that the final number compared to the final score here doesn't seem really bad, but the Mets left most of these guys on base when the game was still close. A big second or third inning changes the complexion of everything in this one.
Up next
We'll see it happen with the exact same time and location Thursday. That's 8:08 p.m. ET in Citi Field, home of the Mets. The Dodgers lead the series, two games to one. It isn't a dire situation for the Mets just yet, but they probably shouldn't fall again to make it a 3-1 deficit. That still wouldn't be insurmountable, but it would be awfully tough to dispatch of a team as talented as the Dodgers three straight games.
As an illustration, teams in MLB best-of-seven series with a 2-1 lead have gone on to win the series 106 out of 151 times, or 70.2% of the time. Teams taking a 3-1 lead are 79-14 (84.9%).
Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the ball for the Dodgers while the Mets will start José Quintana.