NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS DODGERS

October 11, 2024

Kike Hernandez

Teoscar Hernández

Dodger Stadium

Los Angeles Dodgers

Postgame 5 Press Conference

Dodgers - 2, Padres - 0

Q. What is it with you in October? What's going on with you?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: I like Halloween.

Q. You seem to flip a switch. Is it the focus, is it the moment, the spotlight, the intensity?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: I believe it's a little bit of everything. I mean, I've said it a lot, these are the games we've been dreaming of as kids. I got spoiled very early in my career to get the experience and get the opportunity to do this a lot.

I think this is my ninth postseason now. It gets a little easier as you do it over and over again. It allows you to realize that it's the same game. The intensity and the importance of the game is a little -- it gets a little enhanced.

But I don't know, I don't know if it's because I'm Puerto Rican. I don't know what it is, but it just brings the best out of me and I'm glad that it does.

Q. You said before the game that you kind of visualized the night-before success. What were you visualizing last night?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: Kind of that. But the bases were loaded. I saw that my really good friend, Francisco Lindor, hit a granny, and I didn't realize that there was only two -- or three players ever to hit multiple grand slams in a postseason.

I was just, all right, well, I already have one; might as well do it again. I just visualized over and over again. I visualize myself. I put myself in every at-bat -- nobody on, runner at first, runner at second, runner at first and second, bases loaded -- and all these things. And I saw myself having success against every single pitch that Yu has, he has a lot of pitches and that's why he's so tough. And he has really good command on everything.

But it's very easy for you to see yourself failing in the postseason. And the anxiety, the self-doubt, all these things start creeping in your mind.

That's why I am such a strong believer in the power of visualizing the night before the game because as human beings, when we're alone with our thoughts, it's usually at night, in bed. And it's normal to, every once in a while, doubt yourself and things like that.

That's where visualization comes into play. Whenever those thoughts come in, I visualize myself having success over and over again.

You get to the field the next day and you have already seen the day happen. So nothing overwhelms over you, no moment gets too big.

And I got a guy right here that likes the moment, too. I'm glad we're both on the team. I'm glad we have the same last name. I'm glad the accent goes over both A's.

And told him before Game 4, never been done in the history of this game, two Hernándezes going deep in the same game in the playoffs. And didn't happen that day because we didn't need to. But it happened tonight, and we're drinking Gatorade because of it.

Q. Kiké, you mentioned Yu has a lot of pitches, seven different pitches. Were you hunting first-pitch fastball in that at-bat?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: No, I was actually sitting on a curveball. Yeah, I was looking for that pitch and that pitch only. And he gave it to me, and I didn't miss it.

The funny thing is next at-bat, the first three pitches of the at-bat were even better pitches to hit. And the one that I hit out, and obviously I took the first one, and then the second one I swung through it. And then I fouled the third one off.

But he started messing with my timing. I had a pretty good at-bat against him in Game 2. And obviously first-pitch homer first at-bat today. He started messing with my timing. He started messing with my timing. He started getting a play out of Johnny Cueto's book where he did the double hesitation and kind of threw my timing off.

First pitch I took it because it was kind of hard to tell when to start my leg kick. Once he did that, I was like all right, shut it down. And second pitch he threw a really slow curveball and I missed a sweeper right down the middle.

After that, he has a big mix and got the strikeout.

But I mean that's a great ballclub they have over there. I didn't expect that all we needed to do was just score one run to win tonight.

But as big as my homer and my run was, I believe his was even bigger just because it gave us that much more breathing room. And obviously our bullpen is gross. And I'm glad we don't have to face those guys.

Q. What did you guys see out of Yamamoto tonight, specifically?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: What did we see? Dominance. Surprise? No. I've answered a lot of questions about Yoshinobu tonight. My answer remains the same: The team gave this kid that much amount of money not because -- this is not the draft; he's not like it projects that one day he's going to be great.

He is great. And what he did tonight, that's who he is. And we're not surprised whatsoever. Game 1 didn't go his way, but this is the beautiful thing about baseball; you get to do it over the next day. In this case, it was five, six days later. He did his thing.

Everybody has a bad game. He did that in Game 1. He didn't have his game. He came out tonight and got the chance to redeemed himself. Not only that but he put us in a really good spot to win the game.

TEOSCAR HERNÁNDEZ: I said earlier Yama, it was going to be one of the best games that he throws this year. And we saw it tonight. He was amazing. I said that he was going to have a big game. And he gave us the chance to score two runs and that's what we need.

Like Kiké said, that club is really good, but shout-out to the bullpen. Bullpen was amazing today. I think that was the key for us to win the series, the bullpen.

Q. Teo, Kiké has talked a lot about visualizing the moment. That's how he's been able to have success in the postseason. You had clutch moments all year long. Obviously you tasted the postseason with Toronto, but totally different all this year. Kiké is a visualizer. What's your secret to success in the big clutch moments this year, and describe the atmosphere for me. Kiké has been through a lot of decisive games here at Dodger Stadium, where this was your first one.

TEOSCAR HERNÁNDEZ: For me it's more not running away from the big moments. I know I'm not going to have success every time those big moments came. But not running away from it, it's what makes me get better in every situation.

I learned how to control my mind, my emotions in those big situations and not trying to do too much and do the things that I know how to do, is to play the game and just trying to get a good pitch and put it in play.

I know if I hit the ball, it's going to be a big chance that it's going to be a positive way. Not running away from the big moments, I think, is what makes me a little better in those situations.

Q. Kiké, you guys have played a lot of baseball as a group over the years, even your first time here in LA. Do you feel like this journey, even though you have more to go, feels a little bit different than other times you guys have gone through the postseason?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: For me personally or for the team?

Q. For you. You guys have played a lot of baseball as a group, but from your experience, do you feel like the journey to get here felt a little bit different with the injuries and some of the adversity you guys had?

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: Yes and no, because obviously I've been here a long time. For the most part, on paper we have the best club in baseball. And I don't think as far as, like, injuries and adversity it runs as deep as this club this year, because obviously you look at our 40-man and you look at our, technically, non-40-man because they're on their 60-day IL, and we have, like, what do we have, eight, nine starters that are, like, impact starting pitchers that are not with us right now because they're injured.

Any team can go through that and just be like, ah, just have that as an excuse as to why they can't have success or anything like that.

And I think all the credit goes to the front office, to the way they built this team, to the scouting. I've always said it -- the unsung hero for this organization is the scouting department. Every year we -- it seems like a rookie, a home-grown rookie comes in and gets the job done and helps us navigate what you need to navigate through to get to the postseason. And every year it happens to be a huge rookie contributing and helping us get to the postseason.

But this year, man, like whether it was free agency or trade or waiver claim, whatever it was, it just seemed like we kept adding on the right piece, right piece after right piece after right piece to get a ballclub that's not just a complete ballclub but has the character and the -- sorry, mom, sorry, again -- but to have the give-a-(expletive) that it takes to endure a 162-game season and then come here and play that team that -- we won the West, yes, but that team, they're stacked, bro. They're stacked, not just the rotation but lineup and the bullpen and defensively and the way they run the bases and the way they play the game. It's a hard team to beat in October.

Credit to the front office and all that for putting this team together to put us in the spot to succeed. And whether we don't have the starting pitching or whatever it is that makes people doubt -- inside those doors, inside those walls, we don't really care. And that's where, like, not giving a damn comes into play of I don't care what anybody says, I don't care what it looks like, we're all in this together.

We believe in each other and we're going to do whatever it takes to win a ball game, to win tonight. And it doesn't have to be pretty. We just have to, at the end of the day, get to drink a Gatorade and move on to the next day.

And I think that's a testament of what we did this series, winning Game 1, having to come from behind in Game 1. Game 2 was a weird game. They played unbelievable defense and things happen where the game had to stop and things got carried away with Profar and the fans. And I think something happened with Merrill too.

But going into Game 3 they take that huge lead early. And in the past we kind of put our tails between our legs and kind of go through the motions. But no, that day we said F that. He had a big granny, put us within a run. And we fell short.

And guess what? We don't care. We're going to come in tomorrow and we're going to punch you right back in the face. And that's what we did, and we kept adding on, adding on. And the bullpen obviously with a bullpen game, nine zeroes.

And then coming in tonight, of course Darvish pitched a great Game 2 and then came here, Game 5, not needing to make an adjustment, but he did. He made an adjustment and he kept us kind of off balance. And we really didn't do anything. We just had two really good swings. He made two mistakes. And the other mistake he made in the game we didn't make him pay for it.

But obviously we only needed two big swings tonight. And credit to the bullpen. Credit to Yamamoto, the pitching staff. Credit to Will Smith. I don't think we gave a run past the third inning, maybe, of Game 3.

And I don't want that to go unnoticed, like the pitching staff, Will, everybody, if it wasn't for the pitching staff, we wouldn't be here drinking Gatorade now.

Q. This is for either of you.

KIKÉ HERNÁNDEZ: You can go first. I've been here a while. (Laughter).

Q. After you guys fell behind 2-1 in the series, there's kind of a lot of talk about the clubhouse still being confident, still being positive. I was wondering, tonight, as you got closer and closer to clinching, when Kiké got you on the board, when Teoscar, you got the insurance, final out, just what was the energy around the dugout and around you guys like as you got closer to this final goal?

TEOSCAR HERNÁNDEZ: We always stay positive. We know that we have the ballclub that can come from behind. Obviously we didn't have the result that we wanted in those two games that we lost, but we kept our minds in the same spot that we have at the beginning of the series. Just trying to go there, do our jobs, play the game hard, knowing that it was not going to be easy to beat the Padres.

Just trying to stay confident of the things that we know we can do and it doesn't matter the scoreboard. We know that we can score a lot of runs in one inning and come back and win games, and just trying to stay positive throughout all the injuries that we have and like the adversity that we have during the year, and in this series, just trying to keep pushing and believe in each other.