Hernández: Jack Flaherty’s immortal Game 1 has special meaning for the LA-raised pitcher

Just a week earlier he seemed to be a reason if not The Because of this, the Dodgers couldn’t win the World Series.

On Sunday night, he became a reason why they could.

In a 9-0 win over the New York Mets in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, Jack Flaherty delivered the kind of performance that will make him immortal around these parts when his team marches down Sunset Boulevard early next month.

Flaherty was Sandy Koufax.

Flaherty was Fernando Valenzuela.

Flaherty was Orel Hershiser.

In seven shutout innings, he limited the Mets to two hits, back-to-back singles by Jesse Winker and Jose Iglesias in the fifth inning.

Read more: Plaschke: 33 scoreless innings! Dodger pitchers made history with victory in Game 1

The number of innings Flaherty pitched was as important as the number of runs he allowed, as they prevented manager Dave Roberts from using a highly effective reliever outside of Daniel Hudson.

The result: The Dodgers can host a bullpen game in Game 2 on Monday.

A similar pitching plan led to a shutout by the San Diego Padres in the first round. If the Dodgers travel to New York for the middle three games of this best-of-seven series, they could very well do so by a two-nil margin.

“It was huge for us to get seven innings in a long series,” Roberts said.

For Flaherty, who was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, the performance was also meaningful on a personal level.

Flaherty was 6 months old when he attended his first game at Dodger Stadium. During his childhood he attended up to 20 games per season. In that very stadium, he threw Harvard-Westlake High to a CIF Southern Section Division I championship.

When the Dodgers acquired him from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline, he came full circle. The Mets’ shutdown on Sunday night was something “you can’t really put into words,” he said.

“As I was warming up, I saw some family members out there that I’ve been here for games with before,” Flaherty said. “It allows you to relax a little.”

Seven days after being struck out for four runs in 5 ⅓ innings in his first postseason game for the Dodgers, Flaherty turned in one of the best starts of his eight-year career. He crossed out six. He only went two.

“It was a pitching clinic,” Roberts said. “Once we got a lead, he did a great job of just going after the guys and attacking.”

When Flaherty returned to the bench in the middle of the seventh inning, he was hit on his butt by Shohei Ohtani. He was hugged by Roberts.

“Really, Jack did a wonderful job,” Ohtani said.

A moment later, Flaherty got a pinch when Clayton Kershaw wrapped his arms around him.

Flaherty grew up admiring Kershaw, so much so that when he thinks of the Dodgers’ postseason pitching tradition, he doesn’t think of Koufax, Valenzuela or Hershiser.

“The answer is that there is only one – it’s Kersh,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty continued: “No matter what people want to say about his postseason numbers, he had a hell of a lot of good numbers. He was an absolute stud throughout his career.

“I think back to all the starts he’s had where he’s been phenomenal, taking the ball for three days and going out and still going six, seven innings no matter what. This guy is second to none.”

To Flaherty’s point, the last Dodgers pitcher to have an extended scoreless start in the postseason was Kershaw, who shut out the Milwaukee Brewers over eight innings in the wild-card round in 2020. The Dodgers won the World Series that year.

“To get a hug from him afterwards and show me it was a really good job is special and something you can’t get out of it,” Flaherty said.

The same went for the hug he received from his mother, Eileen, after the game.

“It’s hard not to smile at these things,” Flaherty said.

Suddenly, the Dodgers’ rotation no longer looks combustible — or “cruel,” as I wrote in a column last week. Suddenly, the Dodgers have a pitcher who didn’t allow a run in the final 33 innings, equaling a postseason record set by the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. Suddenly, between Flaherty and NLDS hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto, it looks like the Dodgers have the starting pitching they need to win not just this round, but the World Series.

Flaherty made a dream come true on Sunday night. The Dodgers and their fans moved closer to theirs.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.