The Dodgers enter Game 3 of the NLCS with no margin for more slip-ups after dropping the first two against the Brewers, but Teoscar Hernandez isn’t sounding like a player ready to wave the white flag.
Los Angeles has had chances in both games and hasn’t finished the job, while Milwaukee has simply done what good teams do: avoid beating itself and make the Dodgers pay. The Brewers have shown the kind of balance that makes them hard to crack, with elite pitching, an above-average offense and defense that can come up with plays when it needs them.
That’s part of the problem for the Dodgers, who haven’t matched that same level of clean baseball. And if the offense is going to turn this series around, it likely has to come from the stars at the top of the lineup getting hot. Shohei Ohtani is one of the names that comes up when the conversation turns to what needs fixing, but Hernandez thinks the bigger picture still matters.
“We know what we can do. We know the team that we have,” left fielder Teoscar Hernandez said, per The Athletic.
“There is still a lot of series to go. We know right now they’re playing really good baseball.
They’re going to be tough to beat. But it’s not impossible.”
Hernandez has been one of Los Angeles’ steadier presences over the past two seasons, especially when the games get bigger. Offensively, he’s done his part. The Dodgers need more from others around him, and they need it fast.
For now, Hernandez is doing what a veteran in this spot should do: keeping the message steady, keeping the belief intact, and making sure the Dodgers don’t sound beaten before the series really turns.
In Other News...
Dodgers Veteran Calls Out MLB Over Playoff Broadcast Controversy
With the postseason spotlight on every pitch, Alex Call added an off-field issue to the Dodgers' October conversation by publicly asking Major League Baseball to pull sexually suggestive advertisements from playoff broadcasts. The outfielder said the concern is simple: games that draw families and young viewers should not be paired with messaging he inappropriate for children, a point that has started to resonate beyond Los Angeles as the ads continue to surface during the playoffs.
The commercials at the center of the debate feature actress Sydney Sweeney in a campaign for the sports prediction platform Novig, and the pushback has already reached other athletes as well. Sweeney, an equity partner in Novig, has defended the spot as a playful campaign built around sports, but the criticism leaves MLB facing a familiar problem in October: how to balance postseason exposure, sponsor pressure and the expectations of the audience watching at home. [Read more 🡒]
Dodgers Suddenly Face A Brutal Question With Season On The Brink
Blake Snell was on the mound for the Dodgers in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, and the outing quickly became part of a familiar October script: one or two mistakes, then a long night of chasing the game against the Brewers. Milwaukee kept landing the big blows, Jackson Chourio added to a postseason surge that has now carried him into the Brewers record book, and Los Angeles never found enough offense to dig out of the hole. Shohei Ohtani, dropped to sixth in the batting order, did reach base twice and picked up a single, but the lineup as a whole still came up short.
Now the Dodgers have been pushed to the edge in Game 4, with their season suddenly hanging over a start time that was moved up because of weather concerns tied to the American League Championship Series. For a club built to expect October pressure, the question is no longer about staying comfortable or tweaking around the margins. It is whether there is enough left on the mound, in the lineup, and in the dugout to extend the series long enough to make any of the rest matter. [Read more 🡒]
Will Smith Has Dodgers Fans Rallying Around Him For A Different Reason
Will Smith got a welcome lift away from the postseason grind shortly before Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, when he and his wife, Cara Martinelli Smith, announced the birth of their third child, a daughter named Carter. The Dodgers catcher has been working through an offensive slump in October, but the family news gave him and the club a brighter moment to hang onto in the middle of the pressure.
Smith and Cara already have two daughters, Charlotte and Layton, and the familys growing off the field presence has long been part of the backdrop around one of the Dodgers most important players. The couple also are involved in the Catching Hope Foundation, another reminder that even with the postseason stakes rising, there are days when the biggest headlines have nothing to do with the box score. [Read more 🡒]