LOS ANGELES — That had to be more fun than a sim game.
Forced by their two-month dawdle during the regular season to open the postseason in action instead of finding ways to occupy their time for five days, the Dodgers treated the Cincinnati Reds like simulated opponents in Game 1 of their Wild Card Series on Tuesday night.
Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez each hit two home runs, Tommy Edman hit one – tying the Dodgers’ postseason franchise record and threatening a serious seed shortage – and Blake Snell took a shutout into the seventh inning of a 10-5 victory.
Clouds gathered when Snell left the game, though. Handed an eight-run lead in the eighth inning, the Dodgers’ bullpen struggled to get the final six outs – a performance the Dodgers can only hope is not a foreshadowing of postseason problems to come.
The Dodgers will go for the quick knockout of the Reds on Wednesday with Yoshinobu Yamamoto scheduled to start Game 2 of the best-of-three series.
Whatever puncher’s chance the Reds had depended on getting a dominant start from Hunter Greene in Game 1. That disappeared over the right-field wall quickly enough.
Ohtani turned around a 100.4 mph fastball from Greene in the first inning – the fastest pitch Ohtani has hit for a home run during his MLB career (regular season or postseason) – and sent it on a line into the right field pavilion at 117.7 mph. It was the second-highest combination of velocity coming in and going out recorded during the Statcast Era (2015) – behind Ohtani’s 120 mph home run off Pirates rookie Bubba Chandler’s 99.2 mph fastball earlier this month – and the hardest-hit home run off a 100-plus mph pitch since 2015 as well.
Greene’s night only got worse in the third inning. The former Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High star walked back-to-back batters, threw a wild pitch to move them up, then hung a slider to Teoscar Hernandez. Hernandez sent it into the left-field pavilion for a three-run home run.
Two pitches later, Greene left another slider belt high on the inside corner to Edman. He deposited that one over the right-field wall for back-to-back homers.
Two batters later, Greene’s night was done and Game 1 of the WCS was looking like an extension of the late August series when the Dodgers outscored the Reds 18-4 in a three-game sweep.
Teoscar Hernandez hit his second home run of the night in the fifth inning. Ohtani hit his second of the night in the sixth inning, a two-run home run just as impressive as the first. It left his bat at 113.5 mph and traveled 454 feet into the upper reaches of the right-field pavilion.
The five-homer barrage of the Reds tied the franchise record for home runs in a postseason game set in Game 5 of the 2020 National League Championship Series against the Atlanta Braves and matched in Game 5 of the 2021 NLCS also against the Braves.
Snell gave the Reds nothing to cling to for hope when they left the ballpark Tuesday night.
Facing the Reds for the first time since he no-hit them last August, Snell was dominant for six scoreless innings – and pleasingly efficient for a Dodgers team hoping to limit its bullpen exposure on a nightly basis. He needed just 70 pitches to get through the first six innings and gave up just one hit in that time while striking out nine.
The Reds got to him for two runs in the seventh inning. But Snell left with a six-run lead. Even when that lead grew to eight runs before the eighth inning, the Dodgers’ bullpen made it uncomfortable.
Alex Vesia retired just one of the three batters he faced and Edgardo Henriquez none. Jack Dreyer followed with the fourth walk of the inning before getting the final outs of a three-run eighth. It took 59 pitches for the trio of relievers to get three outs.
Blake Treinen closed it out with no more drama in the ninth.
More to come on this story.