LOS ANGELES — After spending the first seven years of his Major League Baseball career elsewhere, Jack Flaherty came home to the West Coast this past summer.
Traded by the Detroit Tigers in July, the right-hander joined the team that wound up with MLB’s best record for the 2024 regular season — and Sunday night, he helped the Los Angeles Dodgers make a bit of playoff history.
Flaherty combined on a three-hitter, and the Dodgers tied the MLB postseason record of 33 consecutive scoreless innings pitched while routing the wild-card New York Mets, 9-0, in Game 1 of the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.
“I saw some family out there when I was warming up, and I had gone to games here with them before, so it just kind of lets you relax a little bit,” said Flaherty, who turns 29 on Tuesday. “Felt I tried to do too much the last couple times out in some big games. Just allowed me to be myself and just go out and pitch, and trust my stuff and trust the guys behind me.”
Los Angeles knocked out a wild Kodai Senga in the second inning, built a six-run lead by the fourth and matched the scoreless record set by Baltimore Orioles pitchers over the first four games of the 1966 World Series against the Dodgers.
Los Angeles designated hitter Shohei Ohtani — backed by chants of “MVP! MVP!” — was 2-for-4 with a walk while scoring two runs and driving in another.
Mookie Betts added a three-run double in the eighth in the largest margin of victory for a shutout win in Dodgers postseason history — as well as the most lopsided shutout loss in Mets postseason history.
“Our energy all started with Jack,” Betts said. “Jack really gave it to us today.”
Game 2 of the best-of-seven series is Monday afternoon.
Flaherty allowed two hits over seven innings in the Dodgers’ first scoreless postseason start of seven-plus innings since Clayton Kershaw’s eight innings during a wild-card matchup in 2020.
“It was just a pitching clinic,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. “I thought he did a great job of filling up the strike zone with his complete mix. Once we caught a lead, he did a great job of just going after those guys and attacking. For us to get seven innings in a long series was huge.”
Flaherty, from nearby Burbank, left to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd of 53,503. Since being dealt at the deadline by Detroit — he had signed a one-year deal with the Tigers last December after playing for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2017 until being traded last August to the Orioles — has been a steadying presence in a rotation hit hard by injuries.
“He’s got an aura about him,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “He’s super-competitive, super-focused.”
Flaherty got a hug from Roberts, and then the pitcher hugged his mother, who sat behind home plate. Some of his buddies from their Little League days in the San Fernando Valley were on hand, too.
“This game is a lot of fun, and I’ve been lucky to do it since I was a little kid,” Flaherty said. “As high pressure as they get, I just tell the guys it’s going to be fun. We’ve got to remember that sometimes.”
Flaherty retired his first nine batters, extending the club’s streak of consecutive hitters retired to 28, before walking Francisco Lindor leading off the fourth. New York’s only hits off him were a pair of singles by Jesse Winker and Jose Iglesias in the fifth. Flaherty struck out six batters.
“He was getting ahead with his fastball, and then the slider, the breaking ball, the slow curve kept us off balance, but he was getting ahead and making pitches,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He tried to make us chase, which we did the first time through the order. Then he was just on.”
Daniel Hudson and Ben Casparius pitched an inning each.
Lindor was 0-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout, and Pete Alonso went hitless in three at-bats with a walk and a strikeout.
The Dodgers were back in action after just one day off. They rallied from the brink of elimination against the fourth-seeded San Diego Padres to win their best-of-five NL Division Series that went the distance with shutouts in the last two games.
Los Angeles opened its pursuit of a record 25th NL pennant by chasing Senga after 1 1/3 innings of his just third overall start in a year decimated by injuries. The Japanese right-hander walked four of his first eight batters, including three in a row in a 14-pitch span in the first inning.
“He didn’t have it,” Mendoza said. “He didn’t have the life on his fastball and a lot of balls out of hand, noncompetitive pitches, especially the split. You could tell that the way that they were taking those pitches they were balls out of the hand.”
Senga walked the bases loaded with one out in the first, when just seven of his 23 pitches were thrown for strikes. Max Muncy singled up the middle, scoring Betts and a hobbled Freddie Freeman, who touched the plate with his left foot to protect his sprained right ankle. He staggered into the arms of Betts, who steadied the much bigger and taller Freeman.
Ohtani chased Senga with an RBI single in the second, and the Dodgers tacked on three runs in the fourth off reliever David Peterson as Tommy Edman and Freeman had RBI singles.
The sixth-seeded Mets hadn’t played since Wednesday at their Citi Field, where they took down the second-seeded Philadelphia Phillies in four games in an NLDS between East Division rivals.
Sean Manaea, who won Game 3 of that series, is set to start on the mound for the Mets in Monday’s Game 2. It will be the first time the Dodgers face a left-handed starter in this postseason.
The Dodgers didn’t say who will be first on the mound on what will be a bullpen game for them.