![\"Philadelphia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/17940710_100425-wpvi-phillies-harrison-bader-nlds-game-1-AP-img.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\nPhiladelphia Phillies’ Harrison Bader hits an RBI-sacrifice fly against Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
AP Photo\/Matt Slocum<\/p>\n
Alex Vesia retired pinch-hitter Edmundo Sosa with the bases loaded in the eighth to preserve the lead. Roki Sasaki worked the ninth for his first career save.<\/p>\n
Ohtani had admitted to nerves about playing in front of a crowd that voraciously tried to live up to its four hours of hell moniker — he was jeered as he stepped on the field during warmups — and he never found his footing at the plate.<\/p>\n
Ohtani walked in the ninth.<\/p>\n
Phillies starter Cristopher S\u00e1nchez struck out Ohtani three times, included a called strike three in the fifth inning that sent a towel-waving crowd into delirium.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez was even fired up on that one, and punched his fist in the air as he left the mound.<\/p>\n
The Oh-4 became but a mere footnote – though Ohtani is the first player to strike out four times as a batter and strike out nine batters as a pitcher in the same postseason game – in an exhilarating comeback for a Dodgers team riding high after thumping the Reds in two games in the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n
Game 2 is Monday in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez was thrust into the ace role when Zack Wheeler was ruled out for the season in August with complications from a blood clot. Wheeler was in full uniform and received a roaring ovation in the pregame introductions.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez pitched early like a No. 1 starter.<\/p>\n
He fanned Ohtani on three pitches to start the game and breezed through five scoreless innings.<\/p>\n
Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez chased S\u00e1nchez in the sixth when he ripped a two-out, two-run double down the left-field line that made it 3-2. David Robertson retired pinch-hitter Max Muncy to end the threat.<\/p>\n
Robertson, the 40-year-old late-season pickup, allowed a single and hit Will Smith with a pitch to open the seventh before yielding to Strahm.<\/p>\n
While disaster struck late for the Phillies bullpen, Vesia saved Tyler Glasnow in the eighth. Glasnow, pitching out of the bullpen in a short series, loaded the bases before he got the hook. Vesia got Sosa, who hit three home runs in a game last month, to fly out to center field.<\/p>\n
The Phillies had only two hits after they scored three times in the third on J.T. Realmuto’s two-run triple and Harrison Bader’s sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n
Up next
Jes\u00fas Luzardo will start for the Phillies on Monday in Game 2. Luzardo went 15-7 with a 3.92 ERA with a career-high 216 strikeouts in his first season with the Phillies after he was acquired from the Miami Marlins in an offseason trade. The Dodgers already had announced that two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell was expected to start Game 2, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the bump in Game 3.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA — Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez rallied the Dodgers with a three-run homer in the seventh inning that bailed out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[121092,64,63,591,85,121091],"class_list":{"0":"post-191153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-121092","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-teoscar-hernandez-rallied-the-dodgers-with-a-three-run-homer-and-led-los-angeles-to-a-5-3-win-over-the-phillies-in-game-1-of-the-nlds"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}