The Los Angeles Dodgers crushed the Cincinnati Reds 10-5 at home on Tuesday, Sept. 30 in a game that both showed their strength as a $350 million superteam and gave hints of why they aren’t a shoe-in for this year’s World Series title, why they’re playing in the Wild Card round instead of resting up before the Division Series.
Los Angeles clubbed five home runs and received top notch starting pitching from Blake Snell, who put together perhaps the best game of his playoff career, but those who stayed up to watch the late night duel on the West Coast still saw the mighty Dodgers threaten to unravel in the late innings.
Here are the winners and losers from Los Angeles’ Game 1 win in their National League Wild Card Series.
Winner: Blake Snell
The biggest knock on Blake Snell in recent years has been his inability to pitch deep into games, but he posed a challenge to that narrative in Game 1.
The two-time Cy Young Award winning lefty was at his best on Tuesday night, striking out nine Reds batters across seven innings. He did so with efficiency, needing just 91 pitches to finish his day as he walked just one batter and managed to get ahead in the count early. Snell did labor toward the end of his outing, allowing two runs in the seventh inning, but all in all managed to save the Dodgers bullpen from having to eat up innings with the game well out of hand.
After spending four months on the Injured List with left shoulder inflammation, Snell pitched to an excellent 2.41 ERA across nine regular season starts since making his return in early August. If he’s fully healthy, he could serve as the catalyst for another Dodgers’ championship run.
Winners: Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández
The Dodgers enjoyed a pair of multi-homer games in Game 1, one from all-world designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, who gave Los Angeles a 1-0 lead on the fourth pitch of the game; the other came from right fielder Teoscar Hernández, who poured it on with a three-run blast in the third and a solo shot in the fifth.
Ohtani then pushed the lead to 8-0 in the sixth with a two-run blast as the duo, who bat leadoff and cleanup, accounted for five of the Dodgers’ 15 hits, four of their five home runs and seven of their 10 RBI. Snell didn’t need to wait long to work with the lead thanks to Ohtani, while Hernández helped put the game all but out of reach.
Loser: Dodgers’ Bullpen
Even after Snell mowed through seven superb innings, the Dodgers’ bullpen still needed four relievers to cover the final six outs, throwing 76 pitches — in a three game series where every out, every bit of rest is critical, no less — and allowing three runs.
Alex Vesia threw 22 pitches but recorded just one out, putting two aboard for the next man up, 23-year-old Edgardo Henriquez.
Henriquez did Vesia one worse, issuing two walks and a single before getting the hook: he didn’t even manage an out.
That brought in Jack Dreyer, who walked Elly De La Cruz with the bases loaded. Dreyer then settled in to escape the jam, working an 11 pitch strikeout of Tyler Stephenson before a pop fly from the weak-hitting Ke’Bryan Hayes.
Blake Treinen managed to pitch a scoreless ninth, but the Dodgers used far more pitchers than they should’ve needed to put away a game in which they once held an 8-0 lead, exposing the Achilles’ heel of their one-third of a billion dollar roster.
Loser: Hunter Greene
The Reds’ young star had a night to forget to open his playoff career, getting the hook after three innings and five earned runs charged. Los Angeles shelled Greene for three home runs and got into the bullpen early — again, a critical factor in a short series — although four Reds’ relievers managed to cover the final six innings.
Greene has established himself as a bona fide ace during the past two seasons, but he wasn’t up to the task in his first taste of postseason action. Had he managed to hold serve with Snell long enough for the Reds to get into the Los Angeles bullpen, Game 1 could’ve looked a lot different.
