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LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers have no Clayton Kershaw, no Tyler Glasnow, no Tony Gonsolin, no Gavin Stone, no Dustin May and, for that matter, no Shohei Ohtani (the pitcher). They have Yoshinobu Yamamoto still building endurance after missing just shy of three months with a shoulder injury. They have Walker Buehler fighting to the finish line of a season in which he made it back from his second Tommy John surgery only to be bothered by a bad hip.
And through all that, they also have a record for postseason pitching excellence — including a hidden perfect game.
It’s 33 consecutive scoreless innings and counting for Dodgers pitchers after Jack Flaherty, Daniel Hudson and Ben Casparius shut down the surging Mets with a three-hit shutout, 9-0, in Game 1 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium — and matched the 1966 Orioles for the longest scoreless streak ever in a single postseason.
“They just went out there and dominated,” said Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who has been behind the plate for every inning of the streak. “I’m back there calling the pitches, but it’s all those guys executing what we’re deciding. We’re just trying to keep it going.”
Those ‘66 Orioles, featuring 20-year-old future Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, went 33 innings without allowing a run over Games 1-4 of the 1966 World Series against, of all teams, the Dodgers, who were swept in a series that ended with three straight shutouts.
Now these Dodgers have won three straight shutouts of their own, starting with Games 4 and 5 of the NLDS against the Padres and continuing with an NLCS opener against the Mets that saw L.A. rewrite the record books.
When part Mets baserunning blunder, part deft defensive play by center fielder Kiké Hernández helped Flaherty complete a fifth scoreless inning, it gave Dodgers pitchers 29 consecutive innings without allowing a run. According to Elias, that set the NL record for a single postseason, besting a 119-year-old mark established by the New York Giants over Games 2-5 of the 1905 World Series. That’s the only other team in MLB history, with the ‘66 Orioles and ‘24 Dodgers, to throw three consecutive shutouts in the postseason.
And when L.A. left fielder Teoscar Hernández reached over the wall down the left-field line to catch the inning-ending out in the sixth, the Dodgers’ scoreless streak had gone all the way to 30 innings, leaving only the ‘66 Orioles with a longer stretch of scoreless baseball.
By night’s end, the Dodgers had pulled into a tie with history.
“It’s been just picking up where the last guy left off,” Flaherty said. “You know that the guy coming in after you has got your back. And that’s why this whole team has felt like everybody is just feeding off of each other right now.”
The ‘24 Dodgers started their own streak in the wake of the Padres’ six-run second inning in Game 3 of the NLDS in San Diego. The Dodgers lost that game, but didn’t allow a run over the final six innings. Then they kept the streak going with consecutive shutout victories in Games 4 and 5 to send their season onward to the NLCS.
Flaherty had a little help from the Dodgers’ defense — and Mets designated hitter Jesse Winker — to keep the scoreless streak going long enough for a National League record. After Winker led off the fifth inning with a single, Jose Iglesias dumped another base hit into left-center field. When Winker took a wide turn around second base, Kiké Hernández made an acrobatic throw behind Winker to second that caused Winker to pause too long on his way to third, anticipating a rundown. He became the first out of what turned into another scoreless inning.
“It changes the outlook of maybe the way that inning goes, getting that out there,” Flaherty said. “It was huge.”
“The game was still in the balance, and they started to kind of build an inning,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Just a heady baseball play. That right there, I thought, took the wind out of [the Mets’] sail.”
If that wasn’t good enough, there was a streak within the streak. Before Francisco Lindor led off the fourth inning with a walk to give the Mets their first baserunner against Flaherty, Dodgers pitchers had retired 28 straight batters faced going back to Game 5 of the NLDS, the third most in a single postseason, according to Elias.
The only longer streaks both belong to the Yankees. The 2004 Yanks retired 29 in a row between ALDS Game 4 against the Twins and ALCS Game 1 against the Red Sox, and the 1956 Yankees retired 31 consecutive Brooklyn Dodgers from Games 4-6 of the World Series — including the 27 up, 27 down in Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game 5.
Only three other teams can claim similar “hidden perfect games” in postseason history. These clubs all retired 27 consecutive batters in a single postseason: The 1939 Reds in Games 3-4 of the World Series, the 1927 Yankees in Games 2-3 of the World Series and the 1926 Cardinals in Games 2-3 of the World Series.
“The game has certainly changed, and I think that from our perspective, it’s just a collective effort,” said Roberts. “Certainly the players that were involved in all those scoreless innings have been fantastic, and I think defensively, we’ve been very good at converting outs when we need to. I think the coaches have done a great job of relaying the information and making it tangible and allowing for our pitchers and catchers to do a great job of sequencing, catching the ball the right way. And the front office, just the information we get.
“I just think that how we’re preventing runs, it’s a complete team effort.”