LOS ANGELES —
Jack Flaherty and the Los Angeles Dodgers pitchers managed to lead a three-hit game and tied the postseason record of 33 consecutive shutout innings by crushing the New York Mets 9-0 in the season opener on Sunday. National League Championship Series.
The Angels pounded Kodai Senga in the second inning, building a six-run lead in the fourth, and kept the score clean by tying the scoreless record set by Baltimore Orioles pitchers in the first four games of the season. 1966 World Series against the Dodgers.
Shohei Ohtani went 2 for 4 with a walk, scored two runs and drove in another.
Mookie Betts added a three-run double in the eighth for the biggest lead in Dodgers postseason history, and also the Mets’ most one-sided playoff loss.
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Monday.
Flaherty allowed two hits in seven innings in the Dodgers’ first scoreless postseason start of more than seven innings since Clayton Kershaw’s eight innings in the 2020 NL Wild Card Series.
Flaherty left to a standing ovation from the sold-out 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 stabilizing presence in a rotation hit hard by injuries.
“I saw some family when I was warming up, so it lets you relax a little bit,” Flaherty said. “I felt like I tried to do too much the last two times in some big games. It just allowed me to be myself and go out and throw and trust my stuff and trust the guys. Despite the pressure they have, I tell them it’s going to be fun. “Sometimes we have to remember that.”
“All of our energy started with Jack,” Betts said. “Jack really gave us strength today.”
“He was beating us with his fastball and then the slider, the breaking ball and the slow curve kept us off balance,” Mets rookie manager Carlos Mendoza said of Flaherty.
The Dodgers rallied from the brink of elimination against San Diego to win the National League Division Series in five games with shutouts in the final two games.
For the Mets, Cuban José Iglesias went 2-1. Venezuelan Francisco Álvarez 3-1.
For the Dodgers, Puerto Rican Enrique Hernández was 2-for-4 with two runs scored.
