Tuesday\u2019s 5-1 win over<\/a> the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series<\/a> is the most recent example of that. The Brewers managed to keep Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in check, only to see Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez, Tommy Edman, Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez and Andy Pages knock them down repeatedly, combining for seven hits, three runs and three RBIs to give the Dodgers a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series which resumes Thursday at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s been a trend all postseason: The sixth through ninth hitters in the Dodgers lineup are slashing .302\/.391\/.448 with 14 RBIs and a playoff-best 35 hits in eight games. The top five hitters in the order are batting .235.<\/p>\n Tommy Edman celebrates after hitting a ground-rule double in the fourth inning against the Brewers in Game 2 of the NLCS on Tuesday.<\/p>\n (Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just that trust and belief we have in each other that if you don\u2019t get the job done, the guy behind you is going to do it,\u201d said Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez, whose two hits Tuesday raised his postseason average to a team-high .379. Hern\u00e1ndez has also scored a playoff-high seven runs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that, one through nine, we have the best and deepest lineup in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n And the hits have been important ones, with Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez tying the score with his second-inning home run and Andy Pages, banished to the bottom of the order after managing just a single in his first 27 postseason at-bats, untying it three batters later by doubling in Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n \u201cI was just looking for a pitch in the zone that I could hit well,\u201d Pages, who drove a 1-1 change-up into the right-field corner, said in Spanish. \u201cObviously it was really important. It put the team ahead. But more important was that I was able to make good contact.\u201d<\/p>\n Making contact and putting the ball in play has been a hallmark of the bottom half of the Dodgers\u2019 lineup \u2014 and it\u2019s probably a big factor in its success. Even with his struggles, Pages has struck out just six times in eight games; leadoff hitter Ohtani has fanned more that twice as often.<\/p>\n \u201cAny time you can create traffic, especially in the postseason, it puts a lot of pressure on the opposing pitchers,\u201d Max Muncy said. \u201cAnd any time you can get guys on base, it just amplifies that and they\u2019re more liable to make mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the beginning,\u201d Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez added, \u201cit\u2019s putting pressure on the other side. We still have to go there and get our job done.\u201d<\/p>\n The postseason spotlight is one Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez and Edman have thrived under before. Hern\u00e1ndez is batting .330 in his last seven postseason series with the Dodgers, almost 100 points better than his career regular-season average. And Edman, who matched Hern\u00e1ndez with two hits Tuesday, was named MVP of the NLCS last season after hitting .407 in the Dodgers\u2019 victory over the Mets.<\/p>\n \u201cThose guys, they were made for this moment,\u201d Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez, who leads all postseason players with 10 RBIs. \u201cKik\u00e9, I know he\u2019s doesn\u2019t get a lot of opportunities in the regular season, but he knows what he can do.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a player who was born for this moment,\u201d Pages added of Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez. \u201cHe\u2019s demonstrated that. And he keeps doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Another key to doing well in the postseason, Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez said, is not paying attention to it. Each game, he said, offers another chance for success or failure and in the playoffs, where each game \u2014 and each at-bat \u2014 is magnified.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s all about what you\u2019ve done lately. Play the game, celebrate the victory or mourn the defeat, then flush it and get ready to do it all over again.<\/p>\n \u201cI know we have big names in our lineup. We have really good players,\u201d he said. \u201cBut at the same time, we still have to go there and get our job done. It\u2019s not because we had a good lineup that we score a lot of runs. We go there with confidence, with a plan and the just try to execute.\u201d<\/p>\n If they can do that two more times at home this week, the Dodgers can end the Brewers season and give themselves a week\u2019s rest before returning to the World Series for the second time in as many years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re good. We\u2019re really good,\u201d said Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez, who is one of the reasons for that. \u201cThe experience, the trust that we have in each other, that if we\u2019re down in the game early, we\u2019re going to find a way to come back and tie it or take the lead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re 2-0 in the NLCS, but the goal is to win a World Series, not to win two games on the road. And as we\u2019re still playing the Milwaukee Brewers, we\u2019re going to focus on them and take it one day at a time. We haven\u2019t really accomplished anything yet.\u201d<\/p>\n But when they do, expect the accomplishment to come from the bottom up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILWAUKEE\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Dodgers haven\u2019t so much beaten opponents this postseason as they have worn them down. A lineup that…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[5955,84406,2442,1910,23590,19498,6539,42296,7088,1266,121766,8334,62,5957,6620,6599,67,132,68,2452],"class_list":{"0":"post-304685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andy-pages","9":"tag-bottom","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-game","12":"tag-guy","13":"tag-hit","14":"tag-kike-hernandez","15":"tag-lineup","16":"tag-lot","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-postseason","19":"tag-rbi","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-teoscar-hernandez","22":"tag-time","23":"tag-tommy-edman","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-week"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115376814068019033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304685","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=304685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
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