By BETH HARRIS
LOS ANGELES (AP) — After spending the first seven years of his big league career back East, Jack Flaherty came home. He joined a winning team in the Los Angeles Dodgers and helped make a bit of playoff history.
Flaherty combined on a three-hitter and Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers tied the postseason record of 33 consecutive scoreless innings by routing the New York Mets 9-0 Sunday night in the NL Championship Series opener.
“I saw some family out there when I was warming up and I had gone to games here with them before, so it just kind of lets you relax a little bit,” he said. “Felt I tried to do too much the last couple times out in some big games. Just allowed me to be myself and just go out and pitch and trust my stuff and trust the guys behind me.”
Los Angeles knocked out a wild Kodai Senga in the second inning, built a six-run lead by the fourth and matched the scoreless record set by Baltimore Orioles pitchers over the first four games of the 1966 World Series against the Dodgers.
Backed by chants of “MVP! MVP!” Shohei Ohtani was 2 for 4 with a walk while scoring two runs and driving in another.
Mookie Betts added a three-run double in the eighth in the largest shutout victory margin in Dodgers postseason history, also the Mets’ most one-sided postseason shutout defeat.
“Our energy all started with Jack,” Betts said. “Jack really gave it to us today.”
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Monday afternoon.
Flaherty allowed two hits over seven innings in the Dodgers’ first scoreless postseason start of seven-plus innings since Clayton Kershaw’s eight innings in the 2020 NL Wild Card Series.
“It was just a pitching clinic,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I thought he did a great job of filling up the strike zone with his complete mix. Once we caught a lead, he did a great job of just going after those guys and attacking. For us to get seven innings in a long series was huge.”
Flaherty left to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 53,503. The 28-year-old right-hander from nearby Burbank returned home from Detroit at the July 30 trade deadline and has been a steadying presence in a rotation hard-hit by injuries.
“He’s got an aura about him,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “He’s super competitive, super focused.”
Flaherty got a hug from Roberts and then the pitcher hugged his mother who sat behind home plate. Some of his buddies from their Little League days in the San Fernando Valley were on hand, too.
“This game is a lot of fun and I’ve been lucky to do it since I was a little kid,” Flaherty said. “As high pressure as they get, I just tell the guys it’s going to be fun. We’ve got to remember that sometimes.”
Flaherty retired his first nine batters, extending the Dodgers streak of consecutive hitters retired to 28, before walking Francisco Lindor leading off the fourth. New York’s only hits off him were a pair of singles by Jesse Winker and Jose Iglesias in the fifth. Flaherty struck out six.
“He was getting ahead with his fastball and then the slider, the breaking ball, the slow curve kept us off-balance, but he was getting ahead and making pitches,” rookie Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He tried to make us chase, which we did the first time through the order. Then he was just on.”
Daniel Hudson and Ben Casparius pitched an inning each.
Lindor was 0 for 3 with a walk and a strikeout and Pete Alonso went hitless in three at-bats with a walk and a strikeout.
The Dodgers rallied from the brink of elimination against San Diego to win the NL Division Series in five games with shutouts in the last two games.
They opened their pursuit of a record 25th NL pennant by chasing Senga after 1 1/3 innings of his just third overall start in a year decimated by injuries. The Japanese right-hander walked four of his first eight batters, including three in a row in a 14-pitch span in the first inning.
“He didn’t have it,” Mendoza said. “He didn’t have the life on his fastball and a lot of balls out of hand, non-competitive pitches, especially the split. You could tell that the way that they were taking those pitches they were balls out of the hand.”
Senga walked the bases loaded with one out in the first, when just seven of his 23 pitches were thrown for strikes. Max Muncy singled up the middle, scoring Betts and a hobbled Freddie Freeman, who touched the plate with his left foot to protect his sprained right ankle. He staggered into the arms of Betts, who steadied the much bigger and taller Freeman.
Ohtani chased Senga with an RBI single in the second and the Dodgers tacked on three runs in the fourth off reliever David Peterson as Tommy Edman and Freeman had RBI singles.
UP NEXT
Mets Sean Manaea starts Game 2 after winning Game 3 of the NL Division Series against Philadelphia. It’ll be the first time the Dodgers face a lefty starter in this postseason. The Dodgers didn’t say who will start a bullpen game for them.
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