The Dodgers rapidly shut down any thoughts of a letdown start after such an emotionally draining win and series victory versus the Padres. Hosting the Mets roughly 48 hours following clinching a spot in the NLCS, the Dodgers got out to an early lead and never looked back to take Game 1.

Even in moments of success in this past series, the Dodgers offense didn’t exactly light the world on fire, scoring only two runs in Game 5 of the NLDS. Although the staff pitched yet another shutout in Game 1 of the NLCS, it’s reasonable to expect that the offense would need a stronger output if this team is to advance to The Fall Classic. We definitely saw a bit of that, even if it came with a helping hand and some exceptions to be made.

Kodai Senga was never going to go deep in this one, making only his third start in 2024. However, in any length he did provide, the Dodgers expected a tough go as he is by all accounts the most talented Mets starter, even if not the best one at this particular moment.

Ultimately what LA got was the ability to simply stand there and let Senga beat himself as the Mets starter had no feel for it, unable to find the strike zone with any sort of consistency. Four of the 10 hitters Senga faced reached base on free passes, which proved costly as three of them came around to score, two in the first and one in the second. Leaving the game with 30 pitches, the Mets starter only had 10 strikes and an incredible 20 balls.

With all of those walks, the Dodgers didn’t need much offensively to capitalize on a shaky start, as a couple of timely hits from Max Muncy and Shohei Ohtani did the trick to give LA the lead.

With the pitching doing its job and then some, LA would’ve needed only one to win this game, but the early damage dictated the whole pitching strategy, not only for the Mets but the Dodgers as well.

Reed Garrett followed Senga to keep things at 3-0, but afterwards the expected move was made with David Peterson entering this game as a bulk arm. After all, as we said, even if Senga was dealing, his outing would’ve been a pretty short one given the circumstances.

Finishing the year with a near .800 OPS versus lefties, the Dodgers offense put up three in the fourth off Peterson. They did that without one extra-base hit as Kiké Hernández, Tommy Edman, Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman all singled in the frame.

After that point, even with the team having not played since Wednesday, the Mets decided to shelve their high-leverage arms, playing the long game to keep everyone fully available for the quick turnaround for Game 2. LA would pile on with another three in the eighth, but the game was already well out of hand.

Even early on, possibly due to Senga’s struggles, all of the scoring for the Dodgers felt much more natural than most of what they got against the Padres, grinding out runs against elite pitching at different points.

For Ohtani and anyone worried about his recent struggles, a couple of things stood out, not all starters are Yu Darvish, and not all relievers are Tanner Scott. As far as head-to-head battles go, those two had a lot to do with Ohtani’s issues. The Dodgers’ DH started the NLCS 2-for-4 with a pair of runs and one RBI, hopefully, a prelude of what’s to come in the next week-plus.