After falling off the pace in Game 2, the Los Angeles Dodgers returned to their dominant selves in Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday night.

The Dodgers slowly inched their way to a blowout win over the New York Mets, scoring in the second, sixth, eighth and ninth innings to ultimately secure an 8-0 victory. The offense started with an RBI single by Will Smith and a sacrifice fly by Tommy Edman, but ultimately featured home runs by Kiké Hernandez, Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy.

Los Angeles also managed to get another shutout from their broken pitching staff, this time on 4.0 scoreless innings from starter Walker Buehler. Michael Kopech, Ryan Braiser and Blake Treinen each threw 1.0 scoreless frames in relief, before Ben Casparius closed things out with 2.0 of his own.

In total, the Dodgers allowed just four hits and four walks while striking out thirteen. Their offense, on the other hand, took full advantage of their ten hits and seven walks.

Game 3 marked the Dodgers’ fourth shutout victory this postseason, all of which came in their last five games. They closed the NLDS against the San Diego Padres with an 8-0 win in Game 4 and a 2-0 win in Game 5, then opened the NLCS with a 9-0 win over the Mets.

According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, only one team in MLB history has recorded more shutout wins in a single postseason. The 2016 Cleveland Guardians held their opponents scoreless five times that year en route to an American League pennant.

As for the other teams with four shutout wins, the 2021 and 2020 Atlanta Braves, 2012 and 2010 San Francisco Giants, 1998 New York Yankees and 1905 New York Giants make up the rest of that exclusive list. The 2020 Braves are the only team of those six not to emerge as World Series champions.

However, none of these teams have come close to the all-around dominance that the Dodgers have shown this past week.

No team in MLB history had recorded as many as three shutout wins by more than five runs during a single playoff run until Los Angeles did so this past week, Langs said. And for the record, all three Dodger wins came by at least eight runs.

The Dodgers lead the NLCS 2-1 and return to action Thursday night at 8:08 PM ET. Rookie Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who got the ball rolling in Los Angeles’ Game 5 shutout of San Diego last week, is seen as the Dodgers’ likely starter.

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