The “MVP!” chants echoed throughout Dodger Stadium when Shohei Ohtani came to bat in the eighth inning Sunday night. No surprise there. The Dodgers slugger has been serenaded with such chants for most of the season and will likely be a unanimous choice to win the National League most valuable player award in November.
But when those same chants returned three batters later, as Dodgers cleanup man Tommy Edman, all 5-foot-10, 193 pounds of him, stepped into the box for his final at-bat of an NL Championship Series-clinching 10-5 Game 6 victory over the New York Mets? Now that was a shocker.
“Yeah, I could hear them — it was crazy,” Edman said amid another rollicking clubhouse celebration filled with sparkling wine, beer, cigar smoke and heart-thumping music. “Definitely nothing I ever expected. To be in this situation is pretty wild.”
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And warranted. On a team full of superstars, including a soon-to-be three-time MVP in Ohtani, former MVPs in Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Clayton Kershaw, it was Edman who hoisted the NLCS MVP trophy above his head on the victory stand as his teammates, coaches and a crowd of 52,674 cheered him on.
And what did that trophy feel like?
“Heavy,” said Edman, the unassuming utility man who was acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-team trade-deadline deal. “It felt awesome picking it up.”
Edman did much of the heavy lifting for the Dodgers on Sunday night, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead with his two-run double to left field in the first inning — the first lead change in an NLCS marked by lopsided scores — and following Teoscar Hernández’s leadoff single in the third with a two-run home run to left-center for a 4-1 lead.
The switch-hitter reached on a fielder’s-choice grounder and scored in the eighth to cap an NLCS in which he hit .407 (11 for 27) with a 1.023 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, one homer, three doubles and 11 RBIs, tying Corey Seager’s franchise record for RBIs in an NLCS, set in 2020 against the Atlanta Braves.
“It’s pretty crazy, especially with the history of the organization, to have tied that [RBI] record,” Edman said. “But it’s a testament to the guys on the team. Our whole lineup was really good. I kept getting up with guys on base and had a lot of opportunities to drive in runs.”
Edman had an RBI double and a two-run double out of the cleanup spot in a 10-2 Game 4 victory over the Mets in New York. He said batting fourth “is still weird to me,” and even manager Dave Roberts said, “I never imagined when we acquired him that he’d be hitting fourth in a postseason game.”
But with middle-of-the-order hitter Freeman sidelined by a right-ankle sprain, the Mets starting left-hander Sean Manaea — who limited the Dodgers to two earned runs and two hits in five innings of New York’s 7-3 Game 2 victory — and Edman a far more dangerous hitter from the right side, it was the right choice Sunday night.
After Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with a single to center and took third on Teoscar Hernández’s single off the center-field wall, Edman fell behind 1-and-2 in the count but stayed back on a 79-mph, down-and-away sweeper, poking a two-run double into the left-field corner for a 2-1 lead.
“Manaea actually made a really good pitch with the backdoor sweeper,” said Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations. “His ability to ride that out and hook it down the line, I think, was really deflating for Manaea.”
Edman’s third-inning homer, with Teoscar Hernández aboard, was a bit of a dagger. Manaea got ahead with another 1-2 count and tried to slip a 91-mph fastball above the zone past Edman, who barreled up a ball that left his bat at 104 mph and traveled 406 feet over the left-center field wall for a 4-1 lead.
“I heard some people call him ‘Little Guy Tommy’ on TV, but there’s nothing little about his bat,” fellow utility man Kiké Hernández said. “He has a lot of pop, especially from the right side. He carried the offense in this series. He’s locked in. Got the job done. MVP.”
Edman opened the playoffs in center field but moved to shortstop in the third game of the NL Division Series against San Diego, when Miguel Rojas aggravated a left-adductor strain. Rojas is hoping to return for the World Series against the New York Yankees, but if he is activated, it will likely be as a reserve.
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Edman, who is batting .341 (15 for 44) with an .810 OPS, one homer, three doubles and 12 RBIs in 11 playoff games, will likely remain at shortstop, and Kiké Hernández, who is batting .303 (10 for 33) with an .863 OPS, two homers and five RBIs, will remain in the lineup in center field or at third base.
“I think Tommy was undoubtedly the MVP,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “Not just in this series … he came in the middle of the season, but he did really good work, including things that don’t show up in numbers. I think he’s a wonderful player.”
Added Roberts: “I trust him. The guys trust him. He’s made huge defensive plays for us and had huge hits. We’re just very fortunate to have a player like Tommy.”
Edman missed the first four months of the season while recovering from wrist surgery and an ankle sprain and didn’t even play his first game with the Dodgers until Aug. 19. He hit .237 with a .711 OPS, six homers and 20 RBIs in 37 games, and though he closed the season in a two-for-30 slump, he has found his stroke in October.
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Another big night at the plate for Edman, capped by an NLCS MVP award, made for an emotional night in section 105 of the Loge level of Dodger Stadium, where the Edman family, including father John, Tommy’s baseball coach at La Jolla Country Day School, were sitting.
“We definitely got a little teary-eyed,” John Edman said. “I mean, it was obviously a hard season for him with the injury not knowing when he was going to be ready, and I think he was pretty frustrated. For it to turn out like this is so special.
“When he hit the double, we went nuts. When he hit the home run, the whole section went nuts. And the MVP chants … that blew me away. It was amazing.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
