LOS ANGELES – Dave Roberts walked into Friday night’s post-game news conference with a cigar clutched between his fingers, his voice hoarse from the celebration. As a player in 2004, his series-flipping steal helped the Red Sox overcome a 3-0 deficit in the American League Championship Series on their way to winning a World Series. As a manager in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, his Dodgers overcame a 3-1 National League Championship Series deficit against the Braves en route to breaking the franchise’s 32-year title drought.

And yet he posted this comeback in the National League Division Series against the Fathersincluding consecutive shutout victories in elimination games and 24 consecutive scoreless innings from the Dodgers’ embattled pitching staff, in the same conversation as those successes. After losing in the first round to a lower-ranked division rival the past two seasons, this wouldn’t happen a third time as Los Angeles defeated San Diego 2-0 on Friday to advance to the NLCS against the New York Mets.

“This is part of it,” Roberts said. “To win this series the way we did, to fall behind a little bit – and those guys coming into the postseason had a lot of momentum – speaks to the character of our guys. This is right there.”

Before Game 5, Roberts told his players that he believed in this team more than any team he had ever coached.

“I just think there’s a ruthlessness, a refusal to lose,” Roberts said.

Their first baseman, Freddie Freeman, played on one leg. Their shortstop, Miguel Rojas, left Game 3 early and never returned to the series, hampered by the torn adductor he had tried to play through. Injuries had so devastated their starting pitching that they had only one member of their Opening Day rotation available by October.

For many of these reasons, the Padres, who had lost the division but finished with baseball’s best second-half record, were seen by many as the better club. A mantra began to form in the Dodgers clubhouse, stemming from a message Kiké Hernández delivered when the team was down 2-1. It was still wafting through the clubhouse as Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” blasted through the speakers Friday night.

“F— all of them,” said Max Muncy.

The lone starter still standing, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, missed nearly three months with a rotator cuff injury and had thrown five innings only once in his four regular-season starts after injury. He was beaten by the Padres in his major league debut in March and again last Saturday in Game 1 of the NLDS, enough that the Dodgers thought he might have fumbled his pitch. They tried to resolve the issues before Game 5, when they decided to go with Yamamoto again.

“Talking to him, you got the feeling he wanted the ball,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said.

But the pick wasn’t a given and wasn’t announced until 9:31 PM PT the night before Game 5. They could have signed Jack Flaherty, their prized deadline acquisition. Or they could have used a different bullpen game after it worked masterfully against the Padres two nights earlier. All of their relievers were available again in another elimination game.

But if Yamamoto hadn’t given the ball with the season on the line, it would have sent a bad message to the player they just made the highest-paid pitcher in the sport.

“At the end of the day,” Roberts said, “we’re betting on someone throwing the game of their life tonight.”

Yamamoto had experience in major competitions in the past, both early this year and throughout his international career. His best performance as a Major Leaguer came in the Bronx, when he held the Yankees scoreless for seven innings on June 7. The 26-year-old also pitched in the World Baseball Classic. Roberts considered pitching for Japan and a player’s country as “the highest stakes you can have.”

In addition to winning the Nippon Pacific League MVP and the Triple Crown three years in a row, Yamamoto also led the Orix Buffaloes to the Japan Series for three consecutive seasons. Last year he faltered in a Game 1 loss, giving up seven points. He got the ball again in Game 6, with the Buffaloes trailing 3-2 in the series, and struck out 14 batters in a complete game of 138 pitches.

He wouldn’t have to throw that many pitches to give the Dodgers exactly what they needed.

“Yoshinobu is here to be a top starter,” Robertse said, “and this is his time.”

Before Yamamoto reached the top step on his final walk down the hill on Friday, Roberts slapped his hand and gave him a hug. A parade of high-fives awaited in the dugout. Shohei Ohtani rubbed Yamamoto’s head and laughed. The Dodgers had gotten to this point without needing a starter to step up, but at some point that had to change. They gave Yamamoto 12 years and $325 million to perform in these situations. With the relievers behind him, they didn’t need eight scoreless. If he could give them even three solid innings, the Dodgers figured they could cover at least six with their bullpen.

Instead, he put together five flawless innings of work.

“He’s got a little Walker Buehler in him,” Gavin Lux said. “The bigger the game, the bigger the moment when he will give the best of himself.”

Two years ago, the Dodgers never got this opportunity.

In 2022, the Padres took Game 4 before the series could return to Los Angeles. A number of questionable pitching decisions doomed the Dodgers that night. Tyler Anderson was cruising when the bullpen took over. Their best reliever at the time, Evan Phillips, watched from the sidelines as disaster followed in a five-run seventh that decided the series. At one point, Yency Almonte missed a pick-off sign from the dugout in an attempt to give Alex Vesia more time to warm up. Instead he threw a ball. Vesia, who said afterward that he was already feeling hot, then came in mid-at bat and surrendered the eventual game-winning hit. By the time Phillips pitched and struck out the eighth inning, it was too late. Roberts was crushed for his moves, as he did in 2018 for taking Rich Hill out of the World Series and in 2019 for putting Clayton Kershaw in relief against the Nationals.

This was both redemption and relief.

Roberts put on a masterclass during the 2024 NLDS as the Dodgers outplayed, outhit and outplayed their opponent.

In Game 4, the Padres’ decision to use Dylan Cease on short rest for the first time in Game 4 backfired, while Roberts’ expert precision in deploying eight relievers resulted in the largest shutout victory in Dodgers postseason history .

In Game 5, San Diego manager Mike Shildt decided to move starter Yu Darvish through the Dodgers’ lineup to seventh in a one-run game for the third time, rather than turn to one of the scariest back ends bullpens in sports. . The move proved costly. Teoscar Hernández delivered the win, as he has done all season in Los Angeles, after signing a one-year deal with the club, putting a surefire shot into the left-field pavilion and giving the parade of Dodgers relievers a had given me a little breathing space.

The first game between two Japanese starting pitchers in MLB playoff history did not disappoint. Through six innings, the only damage for either team came from Kiké Hernández. Roberts played the versatile position player with the season on the line due to his penchant for performing in October.

“It’s a kind of person, that specific moment,” Roberts said, “and you have to make a bet.”

The night before the decisive Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS against the Cubs, Hernández decided to visualize his success. He imagined how the next day would go, the pitchers he would face and how he would perform in the clutch. He hit three home runs the next day to send the Dodgers to the World Series. He has continued that visualization technique and is hitting .394 with six home runs in the playoffs since the start of the 2021 postseason.

“There are fears and things like that that we go through as athletes, especially in big situations, big games, especially in October,” he said before Game 5. “And whenever you feel that little feeling of fear or whatever it is, then just go back to visualizing yourself having success.”

On Friday, he wore a shirt that read “Good Vibes Only” before the game. He then delivered a solo shot in the second that ultimately gave Yamamoto the only cushion he needed.

Roberts could have kept Yamamoto going for five frames on 63 pitches. The starter kept his speed and didn’t allow a run, getting away with a few fastballs that leaked over the plate. But he had done his job. Instead, Roberts turned gingerly to Phillips, who recorded the next five outs. Vesia followed with another, as the duo struck out the heart of the Padres order in the seventh.

Vesia was expected to remain out for the eighth, but an injury to his side forced him out during the warm-up. Don’t panic. Roberts turned to Michael Kopech for that frame and then to Blake Treinen for the next. The bullpen did not allow any baserunners.

With his team on the brink, Roberts said Game 5 was as stressed as he had been “in quite some time.” He didn’t show it and pressed the right buttons.

Roberts has now won six of his eight winner-take-all matchups.

“I thought he was surgical in Game 4 and in Game 5,” Friedman said. “I thought he had the right feeling and the right heartbeat to determine when to make a move and who to go to.”

The result was the Dodgers’ first postseason series at Dodger Stadium since 2013, excluding wild-card games. In 2020, their participation in the World Series in Texas ended up in a bubble. Although they have won the title all year long, many of their players have expressed a desire to win a season-long championship so that they can celebrate with the fans.

On Friday, as they faced a division rival that had been the hottest team in baseball for the past four months, the Dodgers’ supporting players, along with their maligned pitching staff and manager, brought them one step closer.

“We know who we are,” Muncy said. “We’re the damn best team in baseball, and we’re out there to prove it.”

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the LA Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. Rowan, an LSU graduate, was born in California, raised in Texas and then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.

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