After the Los Angeles Dodgers’ disappointing postseason exit, Kiké Hernández was one of the panelists for Games 1 and 2 of the National League Championship Series alternate broadcast on truTV.
The telecast, coined “Postseason ALTcast: Peloteros,” was hosted by former Dodgers reporter Alanna Rizzo and had a panel that included Pedro Martínez, Albert Pujols, Yonder Alonso and Néstor Cortés in addition to Hernández.
Hernández said the broadcasts were a success and that he enjoyed talking baseball with the rest of the panel, via the “Foul Territory” show:
“It went really well. It wasn’t really broadcasting. I took vocal cord classes and all that, but it turned out we were just talking about the game. It was like a Manningcast. It went really well. First day, I kind of didn’t know what to expect. It was all about Hispanic Heritage Month, so they wanted us to tell our stories about how we came up, our upbringings and things like that. I kind of waited a lot for them to ask me questions and I was just locked into the game the whole time.
“Day 2, I was like, ‘Hey guys, I would feel a lot better if I get to just talk about everything I see in the game instead of telling stories about myself because you guys don’t want me to wait until they ask me a question, but I’m not the type of guy that’s going to say I have a story about myself.’ They gave me the green light and it was great. We got to talk about baseball and Alanna is a great host. She did great. Yonder is becoming the face of MLB Network now in Spanish and English. And it was fun to be up there with Nester, Albert and Pedro. Especially Nester, because I haven’t hit him that well in the past and it was nice to pick his brain and think about how he likes to attack hitters. I wrote a couple notes here and there, so we’ll see.”
Among the topics that were discussed included the Dodgers getting swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL Division Series, the challenges of being a Latin player, the World Baseball Classic and more.
“I mean, they ran through us,” Hernández said of the Dodgers’ NLDS loss to the Diamondbacks. “They’re hot, they’ve got momentum on their side. But I feel like every team that’s still alive has momentum on their side.
“This is a very young, hungry team that is extremely athletic on the offensive side, defensive side. They defend well, they run the bases really well, they can do the little things offensively but they can also slug.
“Their pitching staff, I think they have really good starting pitchers. And I feel like the bullpen gets overlooked a lot. They have quality arms that give you a lot of different looks. They’ve got some lefty sinkerballers and they’ve got sidearm righties. Every guy coming out of that ‘pen is completely different from the guy before, and I think that makes them really dangerous.”
Kiké Hernández compares World Series to World Baseball Classic
Hernández also discussed the similarities and differences between the World Series and World Baseball Classic. “I’ve been blessed to play in three World Series, and the emotion of the World Series falls short of the emotions of the WBC,” he said.
“For Trea Turner to be playing in the WBC, the whole world was watching, Miami Marlins Park is like no other atmosphere during that series, and to be at that high, your emotions are that high early in the season, and he’s going off. He’s going absolutely off.
“He’s unconscious for a week, two weeks, with all that emotion and those games mean so much, and then you’ve got to back to Spring Training for two weeks.
“Then you play regular season games, that of course they matter, but compared to the magnitude of a WBC game, it feels like you’re playing exhibition games still. Baseball is so hard to turn it on and off.
“For me, that’s what happened with Trea. He was at the highest of highs, playing in the WBC and going off, and he has to go back to Spring Training and Opening Day. He’s on a new team, new city, it’s all about getting adjusted to all these new things that he’s got going on.
“I think the emotions were way too high early in the season. There’s nothing that can prepare you for that.”
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