On the first day of the 2025 playoffs, the profits were very thin. Aces pushed, the game was kept close, and the high leverage innings piled up. The first six teams have only 11 games in total. At this unusual time of the year (when the patient gave way to the best three full sprints in the regular season, when the manager was in the first trouble sign that the flames exploded with relief—even a momentary slip could spell the end of the game. So, in the third inning of the Dodgers, Hunter Greene (mostly) beat the Reds 10-5 in the first game of its NL Wild Card series showdown. Greene faltered, the Dodgers capitalized, and Los Angeles earned a key series rate.
It seems that the last game of the day will be another intense pitcher duel. Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell enters Tuesday night’s showdown in a beautiful form, spinning with a 2.01 FIP in September. He raised the end of the bargaining, hit nine reds in seven innings, bullied the serious lineup of his right hand and drove out with hard heaters and feather-like changes. But in about 10 minutes, Green was a contact, and that was it. After those three innings, the Reds never really returned to the game, even though Los Angeles’ crumbling bullpen briefly incited a scene in the later innings.
On one level, Green’s first pitch in the third inning was impressive – he tilted at 101 mph. Speed is the representative of his night. His 39 fastballs averaged 100.3 miles per hour, which is almost the same as his biggest regular season average. Unfortunately, the company fastball is pretty much what he does. The first hype to Mookie Betts stretched all the way backstage. If the base is empty, then no matter how severe you missed it, the ball is a ball. But the bad lady is far away. He escaped his encounter with Bates, but hardly any. The Dodgers’ shortstop swayed in the 385-foot 2-2 slider in the midfield, but it landed on the wall. one.
Green seemed to lose confidence in his main court against Freddie Freeman, throwing 54% of the time in a great regular season. He ran a 0-1 fastball inside, and after four more, he found himself counting all of them. Green entered the fastball, but the goal was a small goal. He just missed it and handed it to Freeman for free base.
The situation with Max Monsi confrontation is almost the same. After Greene missed the slider for the first game, he was once again nibbled by the horrible fastball. The first bite the area; the second missed it. He threw a non-competitive separator 2-1 and then sailed a four-person crew, putting two separators in a knockout round.
While this was the second court that ultimately destined Green and the Reds, it was the first one – a 99.2 mph heater, heated into the opponent’s batting box – likely blocking his fate. Every runner’s upward escalation isn’t ideal, but the ugly miss (his second inning) may be more important for Hernandez’s assessment of the situation.
In the third round, Green tells a story. He either doesn’t believe that the fastball is playing in the area or has no orders to throw it there. Either way, the result is the same: He doesn’t want to be in the first place, especially after the 0-0 court. Hernández is sure that he saw the slider and he got what he wanted.
If Green is executed, that may not be the problem. But he surfaced that thing like a water balloon, and Hernández popped it with great pleasure. His three-inning explosion broke the game, giving the Dodgers a four-game winning streak.
4-0 lead with Snell – doesn’t look good. Even worse after Tommy Edman pushed another hanging slider into the right field seat in the next bat race. Green eventually squeezed out his way, but the damage caused it. The Dodgers lead 5-0 and the game will no longer be close.
For this, you can thank Shohei Ohtani. Before Green’s third-inning collapse, the near-definite NL MVP started scoring in terms of the first solo Dinger smashing to pull. Ohtani took the first three pitches he saw and turned on the 100 mph middle paint. Noelvi Marte and Miguel Andujar each had heaters half their positions and had contacts somewhere on the label, each parachute fell into the gloves of the LA field players.
Ohtani is another kind of person. There was something special about the way he was able to open the inner court, clean his hips and whip the bats at a fierce speed. The court appears at 100 mph. It’s nearly 118 times. He had a hard time hitting the ball so hard that he could hardly see it on the radio. There is a boom of voice, then the towering left-handed circling.
He later added a display of power to this event. It was the bottom of the sixth inning, with the Dodgers rising 6-0. Hernández beat another game with his second home run in another game Connor Phillips Fastball. Phillips left sixth and allowed singles to play Enrique Hernández. Phillips beat Phillips 1-1, hoping to turn around and sway. Instead, it sits up like Christmas ham. Ohtani tends to do one thing, and only one thing for middle-class Christmas ham, which is putting the whole thing in his mouth. He launched a deep right center with no doubt, allowing the Dodgers to improve the Dodgers 8-0. Victory expectations are 99.6%.
The Reds made several runs at the top of the seventh place, all attributed to Elly de la Cruz’s speed, but the Dodgers caught them. Snell finally made a substitution on the plate, and Austin Hays punished him with a singles. The Spencer Steer is followed by a line drive that just passed Freeman’s gloves and puts the runner in the corner. De la Cruz came to the plate and, in short, rolled to Betts. It’s a simple double in most hitters. But De la Cruz beat the line in 4.02 seconds, beating the eyelashes. The Red Army is not the seventh place, but the seventh time. De La Cruz cruz cruised home in a doubles match with Tyler Stephenson, and it was easy to score on the ball around the corner of Enrique Hernández. Cincinnati’s momentum was hampered in the second half of the situation. Los Angeles got both runs in Matt throwing errors and Ben Rotwitter RBI singles.
Dodgers Bullpen couldn’t do it, and managed to create a big old mess in a low-lever endgame game. Even with a 10-2 lead in the eighth inning, the Relief Team created some drama. Three pitchers somehow made 59 shots in one inning, which started with an eight-game lead. Alex Vesia went out one, but left two guys. Edgardo Henriquez also left two, the last one with a score of 10-3. Pitcher Mark Prior hangs out at the mound. Jack Dreyer began to warm up. Henriquez surrendered to a RBI single, making it 10-4. Manger Dave Roberts comes out of Dugout to summon Dreyer.
Dela Cruz Homer could have brought the game in two runs. But Dreyer did his job to fulfill the most stable bills of the Dodgers’ bullpen weapons this season.
OK, well, he did go La Cruz and gets the deficit to five. He also threw 11 goals at Stephenson, who fouled behind the court. But Dreyer ended up scouting out on the second annoying hindfoot slider, and Ke’Bryan Hayes first raised a lazy pop-up to Freeman to avoid any serious threat to the LA leadership. Blake Treinen threw the ninth inning, and the Dodgers were half the NLDS, though not without reminding them of their own huge weaknesses late at night.
