Tommy Edman and Andy Pages put struggles aside to

This hasn’t been the best of seasons for Tommy Edman or the best of postseasons for Andy Pages.

But both stepped up when they had been needed most Thursday, with Edman singling to start the game-winning rally and Pages’ comfortable comebacker to the mound beginning the unusual play that gave the Dodgers a 2-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. The victory sends the crew on to next week’s NL Championship Series against the Chicago Cubs or Milwaukee Brewers.

For Edman, baseball’s greatest stage has long been a comfy place. If teammate Kiké Hernández has confirmed to be one of the best postseason gamers in current historical past, Edman isn’t far behind. In 5 playoff collection with the Dodgers, Edman, a .258 hitter in the common season, is batting .306. And last October he had 11 hits and 11 RBIs against the Mets in the NLCS, profitable MVP honors.

“Tommy is a competitor,” infielder Miguel Rojas said during the Dodgers’ beer-soaked victory celebration, a pair of ski googles on his head and a bottle of champagne in one hand. “I feel like everything that happens to him in this stage is not a coincidence.”

Edman definitely deserves one thing for the persistence and persistence he confirmed during a making an attempt summer season. A proper ankle injury, which despatched him to the injury checklist twice, restricted him to just 97 video games and his .225 batting average and 78 hits had been his lowest totals for a full season. Yet despite taking part in in discomfort during the playoffs, he’s hit safely in 4 of the 5 video games in which he’s appeared.

“Everybody on our team likes the big moment,” Edman said. “We just do our best to keep on passing the baton and find a way to win.”

Edman made his greatest contribution in the 11^th inning Thursday, though he had to watch from the bench to see how it performed out. With one out, Edman battled through an eight-pitch at-bat before lining a single to left, the Dodgers’ first hit since the seventh inning.

Edman then exited for pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim, who got here around to rating the profitable run on a single, a stroll and Pages’ two-hopper back to the mound that Phillies’ pitcher Orion Kerkering fumbled, then threw away. The comedian sequence so stunned Kim, he ran past the plate before returning to make sure the run counted.

“You see the ball come off the bat, you think it’s the third out, and you see him boot it and throw the ball away,” Edman said. “And that’s the game right there. Definitely not the way we expected to win.”

It could not have been fairly, or even significantly memorable. But it saved alive the Dodgers’ quest to win a second consecutive World Series.

“We’re glad to be moving on,” Edman said. “And hopefully it ends well with a few more wins.”

While Edman is at his best under the postseason highlight, Pages is…effectively, the alternative. He hit .211 with more strikeouts than hits in the first two playoff collection last fall and was left off the roster for the World Series.

His struggles have been even more pronounced this fall. When he got here to the plate with the bases loaded in the 11^th inning Thursday, he was 1 for 23 in the postseason.

He managed to put the ball in play, however, and Kerkering did the remaining.

“Anything can happen when you put the ball in play,” Rojas said. “He’s been fighting, and he’s been going through it in the [batting] cage. I know how hard he works. The confidence that he can get from this is going to be amazing.”

Across the room Pages stood in an increasing puddle of champagne, clutching a handful of Budweiser bottles as teammates took turns pouring beer over this head.

“I knew that moment would come,” he said in Spanish. “The two at-bats before the last one, I had good at-bats. But it wasn’t my moment. So, I just thought maybe there will be another one.”

For Pages, who batted .272 with 27 homers and 86 RBIs during the common season, it wasn’t the most spectacular at-bat in his short profession. But it might have been the most important.

“Our goal has always been the same: to win the World Series,” Pages said.“To keep moving forward, keep winning games, is what ultimately matters to us.”

But there’s also one thing personal at stake for Pages, who grew up in Cuba so poor his carpenter father made the bats he performed with. He escaped from the island at 15 to chase a professional profession, the only factor that would make that sacrifice well worth the price. His dad and mom, meanwhile, stay in Cuba, separated from a son who they comply with on TV and through social media.

So Pages, juggling the beer bottles, took a second to raise a toast to them in the bedlam of the victory celebration.

“To all the people who supported me during the bad times I was going through,” he said. “I am always grateful to them.”

Thursday he and Edman gave those people one thing to cheer.