ATLANTA — Without Andy Pages, the Dodgers wouldn’t have popped champagne in the Truist Park visiting clubhouse Wednesday night.
His October track record suggested he was an unlikely hero. He entered Wednesday with a .123 playoff batting average. He was benched in Game 5 of the World Series last year. He’d even started this postseason run hitless in the first two games of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, and was given the red light on ABS challenges.
He didn’t carry any of that up to the plate with him in the seventh inning, with the bases loaded and hard-throwing Braves reliever Robert Suarez entering the game specifically to face him.
“I like being in those at-bats,” Pages said in Spanish after the Dodgers’ 4-1 win over the Braves in Game 4 of the NLDS. “There are times the result comes, sometimes not, but I prepare to be in those spots. And today I was able to get the result.”
He was patient, working a full count as he fouled off and then foul tipped a pair of fastballs in the zone.
The next one, he sent through the middle of the infield to finally give the Dodgers the lead in the deciding moment of the series.
The Dodgers are headed to the NL Championship Series for the ninth time in 14 seasons. They will play the Milwaukee Brewers, who finished off the San Diego Padres in four games, starting Sunday. And they came one step closer to their goal of winning a third straight World Series.
Pages has contributed to the last two with his regular-season play and his glove. The game-saving catch he made in Game 7 of the World Series last year, trampling Kiké Hernández in the process, has been immortalized in bobblehead form. But now, he has a big moment with his bat.
“There’s never been a doubt about him, his talent,” Hernández said. “You can’t carry previous postseasons into this postseason. Everything is a new chapter. Every time you take the field in October, you get an opportunity to rewrite your story. So the fact that he struggled in the previous couple postseason doesn’t mean that was going to happen again this year.
“I mean, during the regular season, you have two bad games and nobody freaks out about it, but because people are adding up previous postseasons, they’re going to freak out. But nobody doubted him. That’s why he stayed in the lineup. And I’m really happy that he was the one that won us a series.”
The signs of a potential breakout were there. When he came back from a fractured left hand for the final week of the season, he didn’t miss a beat.
Then he went 0-for-7 in the first two games of the NLDS, and manager Dave Roberts said he wanted to see him “slow down a little bit.”
“I’m going to continue to give Andy leash,” Roberts said. “I believe in him. I feel that for us to win the World Series this year, we’re gonna need him to be an active part of our team.”
Pages recorded two hits in Game 3, and he logged another single in his first at-bat Wednesday.
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“Everybody really forgets how young Andy Pages is, you know?” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said of the 25-year-old. “He’s just starting his career. He’s still like a rookie in this clubhouse for us, because he’s one of the youngest. But at the same time, we see his potential, we see what he can do on the field and we feel so proud of him because … whenever he has the opportunity to contribute to this team, he does it in different ways. Defensively, offensively and on the bases.”
On Wednesday, he’d already showed off his range in center field when he tracked down a fly ball in the left-field gap off Matt Olson’s bat. But the Dodgers desperately needed someone to contribute with runners in scoring position.
The game had been tied at one run apiece since the second inning.
The lone run Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow gave up was made possible by Braves leadoff hitter Michael Harris II’s speed. He got on top of Glasnow’s first pitch, a fastball up and out of the strike zone, to shoot a single through the right side.
Harris then stole second and advanced on a groundout.Then, in an 0-and-2 count to Ozzie Albies, Glasnow spiked a curveball in front of the plate. Smith managed to block the ball, despite the high bounce, but it rolled back toward the mound, giving Harris time to dash home.
Glasnow limited the Braves to just one hit in 4-2/3 innings. But five walks prevented him from pitching deeper into the game.
The Dodgers couldn’t get anything going against Braves starter Tyler Mahle, either.
They hadn’t faced Mahle since April, when he was with the San Francisco Giants and racking up a 5.13 ERA. But he’s been lights out since the Braves acquired him, authoring a 1.99 ERA. In his postseason debut, he limited the Philadelphia Phillies to one run in seven innings.
The Dodgers saw that new and improved version of him on Wednesday.
The one run the Dodger scored against him was something of a fluke. In the second inning, Shohei Ohtani, who moved up to the cleanup spot after hitting fifth the day before, drew a five-pitch walk without taking a swing.
He then stole second base, drawing an errant throw that allowed him to advance to third. So, he was in position to score the tying run when Braves shortstop Mauricio Dubón, who robbed Freddie Freeman of a home run as the left fielder the day before, dropped a popup in shallow left.
The Dodgers only recorded three hits against Mahle in 6 ⅓ innings. So, the game would come down to the bullpens.
In the seventh, the Dodgers loaded the bases with a single from Teoscar Hernández, a pinch-hit walk from rookie Josue De Paula, and a five-pitch walk from Kyle Tucker.
The Dodgers had gone 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position for the series when Pages stepped up to the plate.
“It’s been incredible, especially the way he’s working, just to be ready for these big moments,” Teoscar Hernández said. “I think he was a little bit off his timing at the beginning of the series. Now that he understands he doesn’t have to do too much to help this team win games, I think everything is coming back to the way it was before he got hurt.
“He’s one of the best on the team. We get to this point because of him, the regular season he had. This is not a surprise for me that he’s having this kind of moment in the playoffs.”
As for Pages, he didn’t seem surprised, either.
“What happened last year, happened,” he said. “It’s in the past now. All I can do now is be in the moment. And being in the moment today, I was able to get the result.”