NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS DODGERS

October 11, 2024

Kike Hernandez

Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers

Pregame 5 Press Conference

Q. Yesterday we saw in the clubhouse just the message amongst you all -- job's not finished. When you think about just going into this game, Game 5, you guys obviously put yourselves in this situation, picking up the win in Game 4, what's the approach and mindset amongst the team and how are you guys feeling heading into this game tonight?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: The same as Game 4. There's no tomorrow. We've got to find a way to win today and win today only.

I mean, the way I see it is these types of games are the ones we've been dreaming of since we were little kids. We didn't come here to within the NL West; we came to win the World Series. To do that, we've got to do that or we go home and we think about it all offseason and this team gets to Spring Training to think about failures from years past, blah, blah, blah.

We're not worried about anything else other than winning tonight. And there's 26-plus people in our clubhouse that believe in each other and have the right mindset to go out there tonight and do whatever it takes to win tonight.

Q. I'm sure you've heard people talk about this time of year being your time of year. Why are you able to excel in October when others are not?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: I mean, I don't know. Kind of back to what I said to Kirsten, these are the types of games that we dream about as kids. You've got to have the right mindset, the right mentality, to come in here and just find a way to dominate the day.

Something I do at night is I visualize a lot. I go to sleep and I envision the next day, pitchers we're facing; situations, whether it's offensively or defensively; running the bases; and just envision myself having success all throughout the game; big moments, no matter the situation or the moment, just finding ways to get the job done.

And there's anxiety and things like that that we go through as athletes, especially in big situations, big games, especially in October. And whenever you feel that little anxiety or whatever it is creep in, you just go back to visualizing yourself having success.

And you just find a way, whatever it is that you've got to find so that when the moment shows up, when the big moment shows up and you step up to the plate or whatever it is, you don't let the moment get too big, you feel like you're bigger than the moment and there's no moment that's going to get too big for you.

That's my mentality. That's how I see the game and how I go about it.

Q. Have you always had that visualization routine? If not how, have you evolved your approach to the postseason in your career?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: My first postseason was '15. I felt like it was not terrible performance. But we played a Game 5 here and I had a big at-bat where I grounded out into a double play. It was early in the game, but we lost by one run, and you go through scenarios of how the game could have gone different.

I felt if I came through for my team there the game would have been different. Maybe we would have advanced. I went with that same mentality into 2016 and it didn't go well for me.

2017 was a completely different mindset. We had a great team and we were rolling. And it was the night before Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS that I did that for the first time. I switched gears. And I just said, I was, like, I'm tired of feeling what if, what if.

Now I'm just going to go to bed thinking just how I'm going to answer questions the next day because I just had a great day offensively. I put the team into the World Series, blah, blah, blah.

Fast-forward to the next day, I hit three home runs and I haven't looked back since then. You've just got to understand that there's only two ways it can go. You can either have success or you can fail. You just can't be afraid of failure. And you've just gotta want the moment, gotta want the at-bat.

That worked for me that night and there's no reason why to not do it that way. Regular season, it's kind of hard to go about it that way. But during the postseason, that's just what I do. It's something that's helped for me. I feed off of the stadium energy, and that's something that worked to my advantage.

Q. Dave, when he came here, said the same thing -- you can't be afraid to fail in these winner-take-all games. How difficult is it to be in that spot mentally? I know you mentioned the visualization part, but how difficult is it to get you to accept that part?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: I don't know. I think something that's worked for me is the fact that I've had a lot of experience in these moments. You can just -- there's players that go one postseason, don't have success, then they have to wait a couple of years to get back to it and things like that.

But I think, honestly, when you have a lot of experience, it helps a lot. It helps calm everything down and slow everything down and just kind of find ways to make it seem like another game.

But I don't know -- do we have questions about the team (laughter)?

I don't feel that comfortable talking about myself over and over again (laughter).

Q. I think everyone would agree Game 2 things got a little out of hand, just the entire atmosphere. What would you like to see from Dodger Nation in the Ravine tonight?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: The same energy. We have no control what the fans do. We only have control of what we do. We've known that we have the best fan base in baseball. There's a reason why we lead baseball in attendance every year.

If there's something that this crowd is, it's hungry. They want a championship. They want another one. The one we had a couple years back, the city didn't get to celebrate it because of obvious circumstances.

We know how bad they want it. We know that we're going to -- what time is the game, 5:30? I know at 5:08, they're going to be here and right behind us and they're going to have our backs. I don't really care about any of that. We don't have control over anything. We just know that our fans have our backs and we're ready to rock with them.

Q. Let's talk about the locker room. Shohei said there was a good vibe before Game 4.

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: Did he say it in English or Japanese?

Q. He said it in Japanese. What is that vibe? How is it different than maybe from a Game 3? And is that the vibe in there now?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: Honestly, the vibe in Game 3 wasn't terrible. I think Game 3 showed a lot about us, the way we come back. There's been times in the past where this team, in the postseason, we fall behind and we don't really find it in us to fight back. We did that. We just fell a little bit short.

I think just that same energy was there Game 4 and that's why we were able to go out and do what we did.

I think we have a very united group. We have a lot of people that believe in each other. We have a bullpen that does not care at all whatsoever, and they're nasty.

We have a high-octane offense, and we just believe we're hungry and we want it. We want it. We're in it together. And we're going to either win it together or we're going to die together, but the one thing is we're going to do it all together and we believe in each other. So I think that's everything you can ask for before stepping in between the lines.

Q. On that note, you spoke about your mental approach. Can you feel something different about this collectives mental approach this time around?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of -- I think confidence is huge. This month can make people feel not confident. If you find it in you to be confident -- because I feel confidence is a choice. It's a thought. It's a feeling. If you can find your way to feel differently about that, everything is going to change, your body language is going to change and good things -- when you carry yourself with good body language, confident body language, confident energy, more times than not good things to tend to happen.

When you walk around feeling like your tail is between your legs, that's when things spiral and things start snowballing. It goes back to how I answered the question about how everybody is just confident and everybody believes in each other, that we're going to either have success or we're going to fail. And if I don't get the job done, the guy behind me is going to get it done. And that's how we feel about every single person in that locker room.