{"id":279392,"date":"2025-10-05T11:34:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279392\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T11:34:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T11:34:16","slug":"how-teoscar-hernandezs-mindset-delivered-dodgers-october-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279392\/","title":{"rendered":"How Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez’s mindset delivered Dodgers’ October magic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHILADELPHIA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> does not lack for emotion. He plays with joy, with exuberance, with delight.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a> know he can hit. We all do. If the emotion dissipates, so can the performance.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez could have been the goat Saturday night, in what would have been the Dodgers\u2019 first loss in this postseason. Instead, he hit the game-winning home run, nearly levitated around first base, and became an October hero yet again.<\/p>\n

In the Dodgers\u2019 16 postseason games last year<\/a>, he hit three home runs and drove in 12 runs. In the Dodgers\u2019 three postseason games so far this year, he has hit three home runs and driven in nine.<\/p>\n

You might fret about his uneven defense. You might second guess a defensive play that put the Dodgers deeper into an early hole.<\/p>\n

All\u2019s well that ends well, as evidenced by his three-run home run that powered the Dodgers to a 5-3 victory<\/a> over the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League division series opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, anything that happened before a big moment like that, it\u2019s in the past,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to put it in the trash and just focus on the things that I need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second inning of what was then a scoreless tie, the Phillies put runners on first and second with none out. Catcher J.T. Realmuto pummeled a Shohei Ohtani fastball into right-center field, where Hern\u00e1ndez approached the ball but did not appear to accelerate as the ball skipped past him.<\/p>\n

If Hern\u00e1ndez had cut the ball off, Realmuto would have had a single, and the Phillies would have scored two runs in the inning. Instead, Realmuto had a triple \u2014 matching his season total \u2014 and he later scored a third run in the inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would argue that he wasn\u2019t not trying,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said of Hern\u00e1ndez. \u201cBut, yeah, that\u2019s a ball that you don\u2019t want Realmuto to have a triple.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Twitter, former Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson posted \u2014 and then deleted \u2014 this: \u201cIf I\u2019m Shohei I\u2019m going to need Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez to try a little harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez said he did not get a good angle toward the hard-hit ball. Roberts did credit Hern\u00e1ndez with a defensive adjustment on a later ball, shading the line to keep Bryce Harper to a single rather than an extra-base hit that could have driven home a run for the Phillies.<\/p>\n

\"Teoscar <\/p>\n

Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez follows through on his three-run home run in the seventh inning of Game 1 against the Philadelphia Phillies.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

The Dodgers minimized Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s defensive exposure last year by playing him most often in left field, with Mookie Betts<\/a> in right field. This year, with Betts at shortstop and the Dodgers declining to add a right fielder at the trade deadline, Hern\u00e1ndez has played right field all season.<\/p>\n

The only major leaguer to play more innings in right field this season and finish lower in defensive runs saved<\/a>: the Phillies\u2019 Nick Castellanos, who got into Saturday\u2019s game only after Harrison Bader suffered a groin injury.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, though: Hern\u00e1ndez is here to hit. The Dodgers awarded Hern\u00e1ndez a three-year, $66-million contract<\/a> last winter, well aware that designated hitter would not be an option because of that Ohtani guy.<\/p>\n

As Dodgers catcher Will Smith<\/a> explained Saturday to a reporter wondering whether he might spend more time as a DH in the future: \u201cWe\u2019ve got a pretty good DH. I think we\u2019re pretty set on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez was neither hitting nor fielding well for much of the second half, causing Roberts to say<\/a> at the start of September that he had urged his right fielder to \u201cget in the fight.\u201d In the last week of August, he even benched Hern\u00e1ndez for one day.<\/p>\n

Said Roberts then: \u201cI think we\u2019ve lost a little bit of that edge over the last couple months. For me, I want to see that edge, that fight, that fire, and I\u2019ll bet on any result.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September, Hern\u00e1ndez put up a .769 OPS, his best for any month since the first one. In the Dodgers\u2019 first postseason game, he hit home runs in consecutive at-bats.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, in their third postseason game, he stepped to bat in the eighth inning with two on, two out, and the Dodgers trailing by one run \u2014 and the Phillies had scored one extra run when he could not run down that Realmuto triple.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez homered. He smiled. He skipped.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a great moment,\u201d Ohtani said.<\/p>\n

In his face, we saw joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez does not lack for emotion. He plays with joy, with exuberance, with delight. The Dodgers know…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[20698,1582,276,2442,144443,91894,2961,224,5337,2749,2083,130588,92779,92974,144444,26804,10201,5395,103209,5957],"class_list":{"0":"post-279392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ball","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-game-winning-home-run","13":"tag-hernandez","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-mookie-betts","18":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","19":"tag-postseason-game","20":"tag-realmuto","21":"tag-right-field","22":"tag-right-fielder","23":"tag-roberts","24":"tag-run","25":"tag-saturday","26":"tag-season-total","27":"tag-teoscar-hernandez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115321350767602804","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}