On Tuesday night, it seemed as though the Los Angeles Dodgers were closing in on their 30th defeat of the season after their pitching let them down on the right. They entered the ninth inning of their contest against the Colorado Rockies down 9-4, and a five-run deficit at any point of the game is difficult to overcome, let alone with the team having only three outs to work with. But the Dodgers showed resilience with a rousing seven-run ninth inning to turn the game on its head en route to an 11-9 victory.
While there were many Dodgers heroes that stepped up in the ninth inning, in the end, it was right fielder Teoscar Hernandez who dealt the decisive blow. Perhaps slighted by the fact that the Rockies intentionally walked the hitter in front of him in the order, Freddie Freeman, to get to him with two outs, Hernandez uncorked a three-run bomb that gave the Dodgers a lead that they would not relinquish.
Hernandez has been on a tear for the Dodgers since signing with them in free agency this past offseason, and he credited the unwavering fan support for bringing out the best in him as he plays the happiest baseball of his life.
“Being in here, my first year, the way they support me, through almost half of the season, has been incredible. I love that. I'm happy to be here,” Hernandez said in his postgame interview with SportsNet LA's Kirsten Watson.
The Dodgers are as stacked of a team as there is, and on Tuesday, they had utmost belief that they could pull off a miracle comeback — with contributions coming even from unlikely places. It was Jason Heyward who started off the Dodgers' comeback with a pinch-hit grand slam and Tesocar Hernandez finished off the Rockies with yet another clutch dinger.
“We know that we're capable. We're gonna fight until the last out. That's what we did tonight. Thank God we got the win,” Hernandez added. “I enjoy when my team needs me the most. And I delivered. My emotions are going through the sky.”
Teoscar Hernandez has been worth every penny
The Dodgers' signings of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto stole the show during this past offseason. But Teoscar Hernandez has been very impactful in his own right, outplaying expectations after the Dodgers signed him to a one-year, $23.5 million deal.
Hernandez entered Tuesday with an OPS of .826, hitting 17 home runs and driving in 51 runs to that point. He has been worth 1.9 WAR already (per Fangraphs), which already makes him more valuable for the Dodgers through 74 games than he was for the Seattle Mariners for the entirety of his down 2023 campaign. Against the Rockies, Hernandez, yet again, showed that he has nerves of steel, unfazed by the brightest of spotlights.
The rich only tend to get richer, and the Dodgers simply cannot stop taking wins as a franchise. Now, Mookie Betts may be headed for a six to eight week absence due to a broken hand, but Teoscar Hernandez, among others, has a tendency of delivering for the team when they need him to. So expect the Dodgers not to miss a single beat even amid Betts' injury.
Jason Heyward continues his revival
By the end of the 2022 season, it looked as though Jason Heyward's days in the MLB were coming to an end. After all, he did not play up to expectations at all after he signed a huge contract with the Chicago Cubs. But the Dodgers took a flier on him in 2023, and Heyward proceeded to post the best season of his career since 2015 — hitting 15 home runs and tallying 40 RBIs in only 377 plate appearances.
The Dodgers brought Heyward back on a one-year, $9 million deal, and again, this was a smart money move for a team that doesn't seem capable of making any mistakes at the moment. On Tuesday, Heyward tattooed a slider down and in and launched it over the right field wall, igniting LA's comeback.
What to do with the Dodgers' dodgy pitching?
The Dodgers had a wildly stacked starting rotation entering 2024. In addition to bringing in Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, they figured to have Walker Buehler back from an injury-ravaged past two seasons. Buehler, however, has struggled immensely.
Buehler allowed seven earned runs in just four innings of work as the Rockies gave him no reprieve on the night. Following that disastrous outing, Buehler now has an ERA of 4.64 with just 29 strikeouts in 33 innings of work. A hiatus may be on the way for Buehler so he could get himself right given how capable he is of pitching well when he's at his best.