The Los Angeles Dodgers will avoid an NLDS upset for the third year in a row.

With a narrow 2-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 5 at home on Friday, the Dodgers won their first playoff series of the current postseason format. They have lost to wildcard teams each of the past two seasons in the NLDS.

It is the first postseason series win of Shohei Ohtani’s MLB career.

The Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto defeated the Padres’ Yu Darvish in a historic playoff game of Japanese-born starters, and the Los Angeles Dodgers got home runs from Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández to beat the San Diego Padres 2-0 on Friday. advance to the National League Championship Series.

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Enrique Hernández #8 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates with Mookie Betts #50, Shohei Ohtani #17 and Teoscar Hernández #37 after hitting a solo home run in the second inning during Game 5 of the Division Series presented by Booking.com between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Friday, October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Yamamoto allowed two hits in five innings for the Dodgers before being pulled after 63 pitches in a decisive Game 5 between heated NL West rivals meeting in a Division Series for the third time in five years.

Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers play the wild card New York Mets in the best-of-seven NLCS that begins Sunday night in Los Angeles.

The Dodgers won a decisive Game 5 at home for the first time since winning an NL Division Series against Houston in 1981, after a season split in two following a players’ strike. With the Majors’ best regular-season record of 98–64, they successfully avoided a third straight NLDS elimination.

The Padres’ big players went bankrupt when their season was on the line. Three-time batting champion Luis Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado were 1 for 14 in Game 5 as the Los Angeles pitchers retired their final 19 batters.

San Diego went scoreless through the final 24 innings of the series, dropping its final two games after taking a 2-1 lead at home.

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Teoscar Hernández #37 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates after hitting a solo home run against the San Diego Padres during the seventh inning of Game Five of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

Yamamoto and Darvish were the first Japanese-born starting pitchers to face each other in Major League playoff history. The 26-year-old Yamamoto was the fifth rookie to start a winner-take-all game in Dodgers history.

Darvish, Ohtani’s 38-year-old childhood idol, gave up an early home run to Kiké Hernández and went on to put down 14 straight. Teoscar Hernández’s homer chased Darvish in the seventh to make it 2-0.

The Padres and Dodgers combined to retire 26 batters in a row – the longest single-game streak in postseason history.

Darvish gave up two runs and three hits in 6 2/3 innings, striking out four and walking one.

Darvish and Ohtani teamed up to help Japan win the World Baseball Classic last year, but on Friday they were rivals. Ohtani struck out three times, including twice against Darvish in a game watched Saturday morning in Japan.

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Alex Vesia #51 of the Los Angeles Dodgers reacts after striking out Jackson Merrill (not pictured) of the San Diego Padres to end the seventh inning of Game Five of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Harry Hoe/Getty Images)

The teams combined to score 43 points in the first five games of the series, but the winner-take-all finale was a thrilling pitching affair in front of a sellout crowd of 53,183, including Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and a Hollywood contingent of Brad Pitt, Rob Lowe, Bryan Cranston and Jimmy Kimmel.

The Dodgers are heading to the NLCS for the 16th time overall and first since 2021, when they lost to Atlanta in six games.

The Padres enter the offseason with a lot of promise for next year. They challenged the Dodgers for the NL West title until the final days of the regular season.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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