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LOS ANGELES — Before Jack Flaherty took the mound Sunday night, he noticed his mom taking her seat behind home plate. In the crowd, a group of his lifelong friends from Sherman Oaks Little League offered their support.
Entering his second playoff start with his childhood team, he felt at ease.
Eleven years after the Harvard-Westlake junior fired seven scoreless innings in the Southern Section Division I championship game at Dodger Stadium, the local product was back on the same mound, doing the same thing, only with considerably different stakes and circumstances.
Instead of delivering his high school team a championship, Flaherty was orchestrating the most consequential victory of his eight-year big-league career with seven shutout frames in the Dodgers‘ 9-0 victory to begin the National League Championship Series against the Mets.
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“I’m sure every single one of us has done it and put ourselves in the scenario,” Flaherty said. “It’s the same thing, same game. You’ve just got to look at it as fun and try not to make things bigger than they are, not let your imagination get in the way.”
Flaherty’s Game 1 gem put the Dodgers in the driver’s seat of the series, ensuring there wouldn’t be an emotional letdown coming off a spirited series against the rival Padres in which the Dodgers staved off elimination twice. It also etched his team in the record books.
Sunday’s victory ran the Dodger pitching staff’s consecutive scoreless innings streak to 33, tied with the 1966 Orioles for the most in MLB postseason history.
Just as important, it allowed manager Dave Roberts to save his arms.
Given their lack of starting pitching options, the Dodgers will need to use bullpen games at some point. In a seven-game series, that can be especially taxing.
Because of Flaherty’s work, the Dodgers can now confidently deploy their highest-leverage relievers in a Game 2 bullpen game Monday afternoon. With an off day Tuesday, their relievers can then reset, with Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto well-rested for Games 3 and 4 in New York.
“Incredible,” Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech said. “We know we’re going to be relied on heavily down there in the bullpen. We don’t know exactly when that is or how it’s going to be, but we know there’s games we’re going to have to cover some innings. For him to go out there and dominate Game 1, and to only use two other arms, there’s not really words for it.”
The past two years, the Dodgers have been uncharacteristically deprived of starting pitching in October. It doomed them in 2023. This year, the pitching staff has made it work.
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In a do-or-die Game 4 in San Diego, it was eight relievers who cobbled together a shutout. The bullpen was crucial again in the deciding Game 5, following Yamamoto’s five scoreless innings with four more spotless frames.
But at some point, especially in a seven-game series, the Dodgers needed length from a starter. Their prized deadline acquisition delivered.
“This is certainly a childhood dream for him and his family,” Roberts said. “You just feel that he can handle this market, handle pitching in a playoff game, starting a playoff game.”
In the hours and days leading up to the trade deadline, the Dodgers had some back-and-forth with Detroit about Flaherty before moving on to other fronts, thinking the Tigers would go in a different direction. With less than an hour to go, Detroit got back to the Los Angeles front office. The Dodgers got the frontline starter they coveted.
At that point, they figured Flaherty would be additive to their postseason rotation. Instead, with Tyler Glasnow and Gavin Stone out for the year, he has become essential.
Prior to Flaherty’s masterpiece, the Dodgers had not gotten even six innings from a starting pitcher in their previous 20 playoff games. The last one to do it was Max Scherzer in Game 3 of the 2021 NLDS. That year, the Dodgers also staved off elimination against a division foe by winning back-to-back do-or-die games in the NLDS to advance. But they had also exhausted all their energy battling back. They followed by dropping the first two games of the NLCS to the Braves.
On Sunday, Flaherty’s pristine work provided a more auspicious start to the NLCS, fulfilling a childhood dream in the process.
“I usually have been able to keep it together no matter what, even if it’s the end of an outing,” Flaherty said.
This time, with 53,503 fans from his favorite childhood team giving him a standing ovation?
“Yeah,” Flaherty admitted, “it’s hard not to smile there.”
If he was trying to stay grounded for his second playoff start with the Dodgers on Sunday, the familiar sights in the crowd helped.
Flaherty grew up going to Dodgers games, sitting in the reserve level with his mother, Eileen. In 2015, then in pro ball in the Cardinals’ system, the first-round pick got back to Dodger Stadium to see the NLDS with his little brother. He was there when Chase Utley fractured Ruben Tejada’s leg on a hard slide, and he was there the night prior, when Jacob deGrom fired seven scoreless innings.
Nine years later, Flaherty delivered the same type of performance.
Max Muncy spotted him an early lead with a two-run double in the first inning, bringing a hobbled Freddie Freeman home from second base. The first baseman had a smile on his face as he touched home plate with his good foot. Sliding can create problems for his sprained right ankle, and so can stopping abruptly, so instead, he ran into the arms of a waiting Mookie Betts to slow his speed.
The Dodgers continued to pile on with a Shohei Ohtani RBI single in the second. They jumped all over Kodai Senga, who had no control. By the time they tacked on three more in the fourth inning, it was a rout.
Flaherty thought he had tried to do too much the past couple of times out. In front of friends and family, he felt relaxed. His defense was flawless behind him. The Mets mustered just four baserunners against him and did not help themselves when they got their few chances. Their best came at the start of the fifth inning, when they got two singles off Flaherty to start the frame only for Jesse Winker to run into an out at third base.
Flaherty then retired the last eight batters he faced. The Dodgers have now outscored their opponents 23-0 since the Padres plated six runs against them in Game 3 of the NLDS.
“It was just a pitching clinic,” Roberts said.
On Flaherty’s walk back to the dugout after his 98 pitches, Ohtani waited to slap his hand from the top step. Roberts gave the pitcher a hug. So did one of his childhood idols.
That game Flaherty attended in 2015, when deGrom threw seven shutout innings? It came against Clayton Kershaw, who struck out 11 in that performance. Five years later, Kershaw struck out 13 batters in eight scoreless innings in a wild-card game against the Brewers en route to a Dodgers championship.
Kershaw’s outing in 2020 was the last time a Dodgers pitcher threw at least seven shutout innings in a playoff game — until Sunday.
“Getting a hug from him afterwards and him letting me know it was a really good job is special,” Flaherty said. “Things that you can’t make up.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports