LOS ANGELES — The nickname Mr. October is already taken. However Kiké Hernández has equally proved himself to be a drive that opposing groups don’t wish to reckon with beneath the intense lights of the postseason.

Hernández performed an instrumental function in sending the Dodgers to their first Nationwide League Championship Collection since 2021, hitting a solo homer within the second inning that will stand because the successful run in Friday night’s 2-0 victory over the Padres.

Along with his crew’s season on the road in Sport 5 of the NL Division Collection, Hernández stepped in for his first at-bat towards San Diego starter Yu Darvish and launched a first-pitch fastball to the left-field pavilion.

If it appears like Hernández at all times finds a approach to come up huge within the postseason, that is as a result of he usually does: His 13.43 at-bats per dwelling run is the fifth finest in postseason historical past amongst gamers with a minimal of 150 plate appearances. This is who ranks forward of him:

“We’re in Los Angeles. A number of the biggest athletes of all time. And people nice ones aren’t afraid to fail,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned. “While you discuss concerning the postseason in no matter sport, you possibly can’t be afraid to fail. And this man at all times rises to the event. That was form of the wager that Andrew [Friedman], [Brandon Gomes], myself needed to purchase Kiké.

“The explanation we acquired him this 12 months was to win 11 video games in October.”

Hernández tends to dial issues up a notch when he is within the highlight. In his regular-season profession, his at-bats per dwelling run ratio drops to 29.1. Greater than 1 / 4 of his postseason hits are homers, whereas the lengthy ball accounts for simply 14.5% of his knocks within the common season. His 14 homers within the postseason — although not all of them got here with L.A. — are essentially the most of any energetic Dodger.

There is a cause Hernández appears preternaturally collected throughout these moments: He is already lived via them in his head.

All of it dates again to Hernández’s first postseason in 2015. He recalled a irritating at-bat in Sport 5 of that 12 months’s NLDS, when he grounded right into a double play early within the sport. The Dodgers went on to lose by one run, and their season ended.

Two years later, Hernández determined he wanted to overtake his psychological method. He started visualizing each state of affairs he may think about main into huge video games, drawing on his prior expertise to arrange himself as totally as potential.

The primary evening Hernández determined to do this, he mentioned, was earlier than Sport 5 of the 2017 NLCS. He hit three homers and drove in seven runs the subsequent day, and the remainder is historical past.

Heading into Sport 5 towards the Padres, Hernández’s expectations had been even loftier than what performed out on the sphere. He had envisioned himself matching the feat completed by the Mets’ Francisco Lindor days earlier: launching a grand slam to assist his crew advance in emphatic style.

He settled for driving within the successful run.

“It’s extremely simple so that you can see your self failing within the postseason,” Hernández mentioned. “And the anxiousness, the self-doubt, all these items begin creeping in your thoughts. … That is the place visualization comes into play. Every time these ideas are available, I visualize myself having success over and over.

“You get to the sphere the subsequent day, and you’ve got already seen the day occur. So nothing overwhelms you, no second will get too huge.”

Hernández didn’t get a begin on this 12 months’s NLDS till Sport 4, when lingering accidents to each Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas compelled Roberts to shuffle his lineup. He is 3-for-7 in his two begins and has fielded his place nicely at each third base and heart subject.

It is little question a blow to the Dodgers that Freeman and Rojas are primarily questionable for each sport shifting ahead as they handle their accidents. However when their absences create room within the lineup, opponents beware: Hernández lives for assembly the second in October.

“Within the larger video games, he’s at all times going to point out up,” Gavin Lux mentioned. “He’s acquired that look in his eyes that he’s going to do one thing huge, and this crew feeds off of that.”