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In a billion-dollar Dodgers offseason, a one-year, $4 million move is making all the difference.
It wasn’t until weeks into spring training that the Dodgers brought back Kiké Hernández, but they did it with this time of year in mind. Now, the career .238 hitter is once again morphing into an October sensation.
After homering in the winner-take-all Game 5 of the National League Division Series against the Padres, Hernández added to his growing list of postseason heroics with another home run Wednesday night in Game 3 in Queens. In an 8-0 trouncing of the Mets that put the Dodgers back ahead in the NLCS, manager Dave Roberts called Hernández’s blast — the 15th postseason home run of his career — the biggest hit of the game.
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“This guy always rises to the occasion,” Roberts said before the series. “The reason we got him this year was to win 11 games in October.”
Every night before playoff games, Hernández practices visualization. As he’s going to sleep, he envisions every situation he can think of that might come up the following day, and he imagines himself succeeding.
It’s a practice he began after a couple postseason failures.
In the decisive Game 5 of the 2015 NLDS, Hernández went hitless and grounded into a double play in a one-run loss. The following year, he walked three times in the NLCS against the Cubs but went hitless in his eight at-bats as the Dodgers lost in six games.
So, the following year, facing the same team, he decided to switch gears.
Entering Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS, he was 6-for-29 with one extra-base hit in his postseason career. It was a tumultuous time in his life personally, having just lost his grandfather and watched Hurricane Maria wreak havoc on his native Puerto Rico.
And yet, through the chaos, the visualization techniques began.
“I was like, I’m tired of feeling, ‘What if?'” Hernández recalled.
He thought about not only delivering in the biggest moments but also how he would answer questions after putting the team into the World Series. Less than 24 hours later, he did just that. Hernández launched three home runs and knocked in an LCS-record seven of the Dodgers’ 11 runs in a rout at Wrigley Field.
“And I haven’t looked back since then,” Hernández said earlier this postseason. “You’ve just got to understand that there’s only two ways it can go: You can either have success or you can fail. You just can’t be afraid of failure. And you’ve just gotta want the moment, gotta want the at-bat.”
With that, his October legend began.
He has now launched 15 home runs in his past 62 playoff games, tied with Babe Ruth and Jayson Werth for the 18th most in postseason history.
Of the 20 players with at least 15 postseason homers, Hernández’s 13.33 at-bats per home run trail only Nelson Cruz, Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Mickey Mantle for the best mark in postseason history. He’s hitting a home run more than twice as often in the playoffs as he does in the regular season (once every roughly 29 at-bats).
With each standout swing, his visualization techniques help him quell any anxiety he might be feeling.
“You just find a way, whatever it is that you’ve got to find so that when the moment shows up, when the big moment shows up and you step up to the plate or whatever it is, you don’t let the moment get too big,” Hernández said.
After six years with the Dodgers, Hernández sought an everyday opportunity in Boston. In the 2021 postseason, Hernández homered in Games 2 and 3 of the ALDS with the Red Sox. Then he homered three times in the first two games of the ALCS. Though the Red Sox lost in six games to the Astros, Hernández finished the 2021 postseason hitting 20-for-49 with 10 extra-base hits.
“I feel confidence is a choice,” Hernández said. “It’s a thought. It’s a feeling. If you can find your way to feel differently about that, everything is going to change, your body language is going to change and good things — when you carry yourself with good body language, confident body language, confident energy — more times than not, good things tend to happen.”
Last year, Hernández returned to the Dodgers at the trade deadline. He was close to a league-average hitter in the second half, which represented a jump from his struggles of the first half in Boston. This spring, he was still a free agent when the Dodgers sent Manuel Margot, who was acquired two months prior in their trade for Tyler Glasnow, to Minnesota. A reunion with a super utility player with a penchant for postseason production made sense.
Hernández’s playoff success with the Dodgers continued into 2024.
But the first half was again a slog for Hernández, who entered the break hitting .191. Around that time, he found a remedy. Hernández learned he had astigmatism in his right eye and began wearing prescription glasses on the field for the first time. He caught fire in the second half, slashing .274/.307/.458 after the break.
Still, on a deep Dodgers roster, he had only two at-bats through the first three games of the NLDS. He did not get his first start this postseason until Game 4, when shortstop Miguel Rojas was too injured to continue. Before the game, with the Dodgers facing elimination, Hernández delivered a message to the team that would serve as a rallying cry.
The gist?
“F— them all,” Max Muncy explained succinctly.
Added Gavin Lux: “Kiké has the best mentality when it comes to playoffs, and I think everybody kinda feeds off his energy. I absolutely feed off of it.”
In his first start of the NLDS, Hernández recorded two hits in an elimination game. He has started every game since. The Dodgers are outscoring their opponents 30-7 in games that Hernández has started this postseason.
His career regular-season OPS is .654; in the postseason, it’s now over .900.
“The fact that I’ve had a pretty good track record in October, I can’t help but [have it] bring me confidence,” he said after Wednesday’s win. “And it just makes you believe that you take your game to another level.”
At the time of Hernández’s 378-foot shot on the sixth pitch of his sixth-inning at-bat against Mets reliever Reed Garrett, Game 3 of the NLCS was still up for grabs. The Dodgers led by two runs with the bullpens set to decide the matchup the rest of the way.
As it has gone so often this October for the Dodgers’ relievers, that played in their favor. Hernández’s two-run homer gave them some breathing room, doubling the lead.
It wasn’t quite the same as his homer in Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS, when he began to earn his reputation, or the one from Game 7 of the 2020 NLCS, when he helped spark a trip to the World Series with a game-tying sixth-inning blast. But it once again was a difference-maker for a group of Dodgers players hoping to bring another title to Los Angeles.
This time, there’s an added incentive for Hernández and his teammates, who want to celebrate a championship with their fans the way they couldn’t after their pandemic-shortened 2020 success.
“If there’s something that this crowd is, it’s hungry,” Hernández said. “They want a championship. … We know how bad they want it.”
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