LOS ANGELES – Before Jack Flaherty took the mound Sunday evening, he saw his mother take a seat behind home plate. In the crowd, a group of his lifelong friends from Sherman Oaks Little League offered their support.

Going into his second playoff start with his youth team, he felt comfortable.

Eleven years after the Harvard-Westlake junior fired seven scoreless innings in the Southern Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium, the local product was back on the same mound doing the same thing, just with significantly different stakes and circumstances.

Instead of leading his high school team to a championship, Flaherty orchestrated the most consistent victory of his eight-year big league career with seven shutout frames in the Dodgers’ 9–0 victory that clinched the National League Championship Series against the Mets started.

“I’m sure every one of us did it and put ourselves in the scenario,” Flaherty said. “It’s the same thing, the same game. You just have to see it as fun and try not to make things bigger than they are and not let your imagination get in the way.”

Flaherty’s Game 1 gem put the Dodgers in control of the series and ensured there would be no emotional disappointment following a spirited series against the rival Padres in which the Dodgers twice avoided elimination. It also etched his team in the record books.

Sunday’s win extended the Dodger pitching staff’s consecutive scoreless innings streak to 33, tied with the 1966 Orioles for the most in MLB postseason history.

Just as importantly, manager Dave Roberts was able to save his arms.

Given their lack of starting pitching options, the Dodgers will have to utilize bullpen games at some point. In a series of seven games, that can be particularly taxing.

Thanks to Flaherty’s work, the Dodgers can now confidently use their highest-leverage relievers in a Game 2 bullpen game on Monday afternoon. With a bad day on Tuesday, their relievers can then reset, while Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are well rested for Games 3 and 4 in New York.

“Unbelievable,” Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech said. “We know we’re going to be relied on heavily there in the bullpen. We don’t know exactly when that is or what it’s going to be like, but we know there are games that we’re going to have to cover a number of innings. For him to go out and dominates Game 1, using only two other arms, there aren’t really words for that.”

For the past two years, the Dodgers have been uncharacteristically deprived of the start of October pitching. They were doomed in 2023. This year the pitching staff has worked on it.

In a do-or-die Game 4 in San Diego, it was eight relievers who put together a shutout. The bullpen was crucial again in the decisive Game 5, following Yamamoto’s five scoreless innings with four more flawless frames.

But at some point, especially in a seven-game series, the Dodgers needed length from a starter. Their prized deadline acquisition was delivered.

“This is definitely a childhood dream for him and his family,” Roberts said. “You just feel like he can handle this market, pitching in a playoff game, starting a playoff game.”

In the hours and days leading up to the trade deadline, the Dodgers had some back-and-forth with Detroit over Flaherty before moving on to other fronts, assuming the Tigers would go in a different direction. With less than an hour to go, Detroit returned to the Los Angeles front office. The Dodgers got the frontline starter they coveted.

At the time, they thought Flaherty would be an addition to their postseason rotation. Instead, with Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone absent this year, he has become essential.

Prior to Flaherty’s masterpiece, the Dodgers had gotten less than six innings from a starting pitcher in their previous 20 playoff games. The last to do so was Max Scherzer in Game 3 of the 2021 NLDS. That year, the Dodgers also avoided elimination against a division foe by winning consecutive do-or-die games in the NLDS to advance. But they had also exhausted all their energy fighting back. They followed up by dropping the first two games of the NLCS to the Braves.

On Sunday, Flaherty’s impeccable work made for a promising start to the NLCS, fulfilling a childhood dream.

“Most of the time I’ve been able to keep it together no matter what, even if it’s the end of an outing,” Flaherty said.

This time with 53,503 fans of his favorite youth team giving him a standing ovation?

“Yeah,” Flaherty admitted, “it’s hard not to smile there.”

As he tried to stay on the ground for his second playoff start with the Dodgers on Sunday, the familiar sights in the crowd helped.

Flaherty grew up going to Dodgers games and was on the reserve level with his mother, Eileen. In 2015, then as a pro in the Cardinals system, the first-round pick returned to Dodger Stadium to watch the NLDS with his little brother. He was there when Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada’s leg on a hard slide, and he was there the night before when Jacob deGrom fired seven scoreless innings.

Nine years later, Flaherty delivered a similar performance.

Max Muncy found him ahead early with a two-run double in the first inning, bringing home a hobbled Freddie Freeman from second base. The first baseman had a smile on his face as he hit home plate with his good foot. Sliding can cause problems for his sprained right ankle, and so can stopping abruptly. Instead, he ran into the arms of a waiting Mookie Betts to slow his speed.

The Dodgers kept going with a Shohei Ohtani RBI single in the second. They jumped over Kodai Senga, who had no control. By the time they scored three more in the fourth inning, it was a rout.

Flaherty felt he had tried to do too much the last few times. In the presence of friends and family he felt relaxed. His defense behind him was flawless. The Mets mustered only four baserunners against him and didn’t help themselves when they got their few opportunities. Their best came early in the fifth inning, when they got two singles off Flaherty to start the frame, only for Jesse Winker to run into an out at third base.

Flaherty then retired the last eight batters he faced. The Dodgers have now outscored their opponents 23-0 since the Padres scored six runs against them in Game 3 of the NLDS.

“It was just a pitching clinic,” Roberts said.

As Flaherty walked back to the dugout after his 98 pitches, Ohtani waited with a slap on his hand from the top step. Roberts gave the pitcher a hug. One of his childhood idols did that too.

That game Flaherty attended in 2015, when deGrom pitched seven shutout innings? It came against Clayton Kershaw, who struck out 11 in that outing. Five years later, Kershaw struck out 13 batters in eight scoreless innings in a wild-card game against the Brewers en route to a Dodgers championship.

Kershaw’s 2020 performance marked the last time a Dodgers pitcher threw at least seven shutout innings in a playoff game — through Sunday.

“It’s special to get a hug from him afterwards and let me know it was a really good job,” Flaherty said. “Things you can’t make up.”

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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