The Dodgers are on the verge of their second World Series championship in five years. They could be on the verge of their third title in eight years but (insert trash can banging sound here).
The 2017 Houston Astros will forever live in infamy. Just ask Clayton Kershaw.
You might say the Astros’ championship rings are tainted. The Dodgers’ left fielder owns one of them.
Teoscar Hernández played one game for the 2017 Astros. He got called up from the minor leagues one day, got hurt the same day, and later returned to the minors. Three months later, the Astros traded him for pitcher Francisco Liriano.
In Hernández’s home in the Dominican Republic, he proudly keeps his Astros championship ring. He said Jose Altuve pushed for the Astros to award him a ring.
On Tuesday, Hernández gets the chance for which he has waited, about which he has dreamed, for seven years now: to play for a championship team in the championship series, to enjoy that dogpile, to earn a ring in recognition of a World Series in which he participated.
“That,” he said Monday, “would be huge.”
On Monday, a night in which the Dodgers showed off their defensive prowess in moving within one game of a sweep of the New York Yankees, Hernández delivered the play of the game.
In the fourth inning, with the Dodgers leading, 3-0, Hernández threw out Giancarlo Stanton, who was trying to score from second base on a two-out single.
“As a player, you anticipate those kinds of plays,” Hernández said. “I got the perfect line drive, one hop, and I could make a good throw.”
If Stanton had scored, the Yankees would have brought the potential tying run to the plate. From that point on, they never did.
“That play was huge for us,” Kiké Hernández said. “If that run scores, that team gets a lot of life. That stadium gets a lot of life. It was very important for us. Zero runs at that point.
“I would say that play, if we do what we’re trying to do, we’ll look back at what happened in the series, and that’s going to be a very underrated play.”
At shortstop, Tommy Edman saved pitcher Brusdar Graterol by leaping high to catch an ill-advised throw and descending to nick second base for a force play. In right field, Mookie Betts robbed Jazz Chisholm Jr. with a nifty diving catch.
“The Mookie play was interesting,” pitcher Walker Buehler said. “Obviously the ball is spinning a little weird, and [he] kind of stepped back for a second and made the play. He’s won a few Gold Gloves out there, so that’s something we kind of expect from him.
“Teo threw Stanton out at home and I got in the dugout and I said, ‘They don’t know about you in New York.’ ”
Betts has six Gold Gloves. The Dodgers removed Hernández for defensive purposes in the eighth inning of Monday’s game.
Aaron Boone, the Yankees’ manager, said after the game that his team wanted to challenge Hernández, particularly since he had to hustle to his right to field the ball.
Although Hernández might not be the most acrobatic fielder, he led American League outfielders in assists last year. In four of the past six years, he has ranked among the top three.
The throw with which he nailed Stanton was clocked at 94 mph, his fastest throw of the season. He did not know that until after the game, but he smiled when he heard about it. The World Series is all hands on deck, and Hernández said he could even pitch an inning if necessary.
“If they need me to so we can win, yeah,” he said.
Hernández, 32, who signed a one-year contract with the Dodgers last January, made the All-Star team and hit 33 home runs, not counting all the ones he hit to win the home run derby. He would very much like to stay with the Dodgers, for a long time.
“Just because of the group,” he said. “This group is really special. They don’t play for themselves. They play for the whole group. Everything that we are going to do together, we do as a group. There’s not anybody thinking about their numbers. It’s just about winning.”
The New York Post reported Sunday that the Dodgers “have interest” in signing Yankees star Juan Soto, 26, who presumably would displace Hernández in left field. Here’s the thing: The Dodgers have interest in just about every great player. They can afford to sign whoever they want. They might seriously entertain Soto, or they might not, but they certainly would like agents and rival teams to think they would.
Free agency starts the day after the World Series ends, and the Dodgers would like the World Series to end Tuesday. There is no hurry. Soto’s agent, Scott Boras, prefers to take his time in free agency.
That could take months. For Hernández and the Dodgers, there could be a parade this week.