The Los Angeles Dodgers took an important matchup against the New York Mets in Game 3 of the 2024 National League Championship Series, winning 8-0 backed by a strong pitching performance and timely hitting.
The winner of an LCS Game 3 when a series was tied 1-1 entering it goes on to advance to the World Series roughly 70% of the time.
Walker Buehler set the tone as he pitched four shutout innings, showing some of that vitange ability that made the right-hander someone the Dodgers relied on in the biggest stage.
Buehler ran into some trouble a few times, but was able to get out of it each time. The most important moment of the game for him came when the Mets loaded the bases in the second, but Buehler came back to strike out Francisco Alvarez and Francisco Lindor to end the threat.
The Mets also put a pair of runners on in the third against Buehler, but he struck out J.D. Martinez to end the inning.
Buehler finished his night with 18 swings and misses while picking up six strikeouts, walking two and allowing three hits over his four shutout frames.
The Dodgers scored their first run in the second inning with some help from the Mets’ defense. Max Muncy walked, Teoscar Hernández reached on a mistake throw from Alvarez, Gavin Lux moved them over with a ground ball that Luis Severino could not field cleanly, and then Will Smith singled home a run with a ball off Severino’s glove.
Tommy Edman then added on with a sacrifice fly to give it a 2-0 Dodgers lead. However, an impressive catch from Tyrone Taylor kept the Dodgers from scoring more.
That 2-0 lead remained until the sixth inning when the legend of Kiké Hernández continued in October. Tommy Edman singled with two outs before Hernández blasted a two-run homer that doubled the Dodgers’ lead and left Citi Field quiet.
The Dodgers added onto their lead in the eighth when Shohei Ohtani crushed a three-run homer to break the game open to 7-0.
Max Muncy hit a home run in the 9th inning, giving him 13 postseason home runs in his career. That tied the Dodgers franchise record for most in the playoffs with Justin Turner and Corey Seager.
After Buehler, Michael Kopech worked a perfect fifth inning against the heart of the Mets’ lineup, Ryan Brasier took down the sixth with a scoreless inning. Blake Treinen made quick work of the Mets in the seventh and Ben Casparius pitched the final two innings.
The shutout win is the Dodgers fourth of the postseason, the most in MLB this year and the second against the Mets.
Shohei Ohtani continues confusing postseason for Dodgers
Shohei Ohtani went 1-for-4 in the game, but all three outs were with no one on base. He is now 0-for-22 with the bases empty in October, and improved to 7-for-9 with runners on.
The Dodgers have not considered changing the lineup, but they need Ohtani to figure things out soon.
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