The Dodgers have more than $1 billion invested in Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Teoscar Hernández hit 33 home runs this season and started the All-Star Game. Kiké Hernández has as many postseason home runs on his resume as Babe Ruth. It goes on and on.
And yet the hitter leading the way in the National League Championship Series is L.A.’s unlikely cleanup man, a second-half Trade Deadline pickup who stands 5-foot-10, has never touched 60 RBIs in six seasons in the Majors and is better known for his glove and his speed.
Tommy Edman rose to the moment with the Dodgers on the cusp of the World Series, driving in four huge runs to capture NLCS MVP honors in L.A.’s clinching 10-5 win.
Edman plated 11 runs in the NLCS, tying Corey Seager for most RBIs in a postseason series for the Dodgers since that statistic became official in 1920.
In a series full of big hits, Edman delivered two huge ones in his first two trips to the plate in Sunday’s Game 6. His two-run double in the first inning put the Dodgers ahead, 2-1, and provided the first lead change of what had been a lopsided series. In the third, Edman mashed his first career postseason home run, a two-run shot that gave him 11 RBIs in the NLCS to tie Corey Seager’s franchise record for any round of the postseason.
Seager’s 11 RBIs against the Braves in the 2020 NLCS won him series MVP honors.
For the Dodgers, it was just what was needed against Mets left-hander Sean Manaea, who’d held L.A. to two hits in its loss in Game 2.
"He’s a tough pitcher, you have to do a really good job of getting him in the zone,” Edman said during an in-game interview. “We’re doing a good job of that today. I think that first game, kind of seeing that weird release point, helped."
Going into the series, Edman’s defense was supposed to be his defining asset. With Miguel Rojas out with a groin injury, Edman shifted away from utility duties and became the everyday shortstop for the Dodgers, who acquired him from the Cardinals in the three-team trade in July that also netted Sunday’s starting pitcher on a bullpen day, Michael Kopech, from the White Sox.
