LOS ANGELES — They had all the money, all the stars and all the hype, but what these Dodgers needed most, they learned, was an edge.

They found it during the stretch run of their season, when injuries piled up and doubt crept in. It coalesced around a short, cutting message that littered their group chat throughout September and became their rallying cry after falling to the brink of elimination against their bitter rivals.

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy was among the many who shared it Friday night, after overcoming the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series: “F— them all.”

The Dodgers rode five innings from an effective Yoshinobu Yamamoto, home runs from Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández and another run of dominant relief work to beat the Padres 2-0 at an electric Dodger Stadium in a winner-take-all Game 5.

Their postseason rotation is down to three members, and their No. 3 hitter, Freddie Freeman, continues to be bothered by a badly sprained right ankle. But the Dodgers will nonetheless move on to face the New York Mets in the NL Championship Series, with Game 1 scheduled for Sunday.

Dave Roberts, winding down his ninth season as Dodgers manager, compared the achievement to his Boston Red Sox overcoming a 3-0 series deficit against the New York Yankees in 2004 and his Dodgers overcoming a 3-1 deficit against the Atlanta Braves in 2020. It’s because of recent history, which has seen the Dodgers get trounced by division rivals in the NLDS each of the past two years. And it’s because of the opponent.

“I wanted to beat those guys,” Roberts said. “We all wanted to beat those guys really bad.”

Roberts awoke Friday morning to manage his eighth winner-take-all game and felt a certain calmness about it. He didn’t know what to expect from Yamamoto and had no idea what other obstacles would present themselves, but he took solace in the identity of a team he considered uniquely relentless and resilient.

Said Roberts: “I believe in this team more than any team I’ve had.”

The Dodgers splurged more than $1 billion this offseason, adding Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Teoscar Hernández, among others. They outlasted the Padres and won 98 regular-season games to capture their 11th division title in 12 years. But many saw them as underdogs in this NLDS. The Padres were healthier, more complete, with an offense that was humming, a rotation that had been dominant and a bullpen that stood among the deepest in the sport. The Dodgers rallied around that.

“What was it, 80 percent of the f—ing experts said we were going to lose?” Muncy said. “F— those guys. We know who we are. We’re the f—ing best team in baseball, and we’re out there to prove it.”

When the Dodgers lost Game 4 to the Braves in the 2020 NLCS, requiring three consecutive victories to reach the World Series, a players-only group chat began to populate with positive messages. It helped lift the team to a championship. Something similar occurred recently, after Game 3, with the Dodgers down 2-1 in the series and requiring a bullpen game to survive Game 4. Kiké Hernández, a longtime sparkplug in Los Angeles, was among the most vocal.

One message in particular resonated with Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux.

“He said, ‘F— everybody,'” Lux recalled. “‘Everyone that’s not in this clubhouse.'”

When Kiké Hernández was placed in the starting lineup for Game 4 — a by-product of Freeman and shortstop Miguel Rojas being too injured to play — he told Teoscar Hernández that two Hernándezes had never homered in the same postseason game. That Wednesday night, Kiké Hernández told him, they would be the first. When it didn’t happen, he told him they would do it in Friday’s Game 5. Then they did.

“I believe in him, he believe in me, I believe in myself, and we enjoyed today,” Teoscar Hernández said.

Seven years ago, in 2017, Kiké Hernández got into the habit of visualizing success going into postseason games. Lying in bed the night before, he would picture himself hitting a home run, rounding the bases, conducting postgame interviews. It helped make him one of the sport’s most productive postseason performers. He did the same thing before Game 5 then got a first-pitch fastball in the second inning and clobbered it 428 feet to left-center field to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead. Five innings later, against a continually effective Yu Darvish, the other Hernández got a 2-1 slider that leaked out over the plate and sent it 420 feet to the same vicinity.

Teoscar Hernández has been a fixture in the middle of the Dodgers’ lineup all year. Kiké Hernández was brought back for his eighth year with the Dodgers to serve as a versatile bench player, but also to star in October. His latest home run was his 14th in 75 career postseason games.

“I kept telling myself, ‘They brought you here for a reason. They brought you here to play in October,'” Kiké Hernández said. “I wanted to come back to make a run with this team, because I really want to have a parade. I knew that whether it was going to be on defense or at the plate, I was going to find a way to win this game for us.”

Yamamoto did something similar, while working to sync up his delivery going into the biggest start of his major league career. The Dodgers made Yamamoto the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history this offseason, signing him to a 12-year, $325 million contract. He struggled in his Dodgers debut against the Padres in March and struggled in his postseason debut against the Padres in Game 1.

But the Dodgers had also seen him shine under Major League Baseball’s brightest lights, dominating at Yankee Stadium on June 7 and stifling the Chicago Cubs — in a matchup against countrymen Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki — when he returned from a three-month absence on Sept. 10. The Dodgers hoped that version would present itself when it mattered most — then they saw him commanding a fastball that sat consistently at 97 mph in the first inning and knew it would.

“In talking to him,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said, “you can get the sense that he wanted the ball.”

The ball went from Yamamoto to Evan Phillips to Alex Vesia to Michael Kopech to, in the end, Blake Treinen. Together, they held the Padres to zero runs and three baserunners. They and many others combined to hold the Padres scoreless over the final 24 innings of this NLDS, the third-longest streak to close a series in postseason history. The Padres’ offense wasn’t supposed to be tamed like this. Their depth and their talent were supposed to overcome even the best relievers.

The Dodgers didn’t care for any of that, and Kiké Hernández summed up why:

“We have a lot of ‘F U’ in us.”

Lahore: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Sunday announced squad for the second and third Test matches against England, which will be played in Multan and Rawalpindi on 15 and 24 October, respectively.

Taking into consideration the current form and fitness of key players and looking ahead to Pakistan’s future assignments in the 2024-25 international cricket season, the selectors have decided to give rest to Babar Azam, Naseem Shah, Sarfaraz Ahmed, and Shaheen Shah Afridi. Abrar Ahmed, (who is recovering from dengue fever, was unavailable for selection.

The four players have been replaced by Haseebullah, Mehran Mumtaz, Kamran Ghulam (all uncapped), fast bowler Mohammad Ali, and off-spinner Sajid Khan. Noman Ali and Zahid Mehmood, who were initially part of the original squad but were subsequently released, have also been included in the 16-player squad.

Squad (for 2nd and 3rd Tests): Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Aamir Jamal, Abdullah Shafique, Haseebullah (wicket-kepeer), Kamran Ghulam, Mehran Mumtaz, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Huraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicket-keeper), Noman Ali, Saim Ayub, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha and Zahid Mehmood.

 

KARACHI: Pakistani squash player Ashab Irfan has won the Mile High 360 Classic squash tournament in Denver, United States after victory over his fellow countryman Asim Khan.

The final went to five games with both players showcasing remarkable grit. However, Ashab overcame Asim in the 112-minute battle to claim the titile.

In the first game, Ashab came out strong, narrowly winning 15-13 after several intense rallies. However, Asim fought back in the second game, adjusting his tactics to level the score via an 11-8 win.

Asim kept the pressure on in the third game, taking it 11-9 with sharp play, putting him ahead. But Ashab wasn’t ready to give up. He regrouped in the fourth game, winning 11-8 to force a fifth and final game.

The deciding game was tight, but Ashab managed to edge Asim 11-9, claiming the $15,000 championship, with a final score of 15-13, 8-11, 9-11, 11-8, and 11-9.

Today’s final comes after both the players qualified for the final after securing victory in their respective matches a day earlier.

Asim won against fellow Pakistani Noor Zaman, whereas Ashab cruised to a 3-0 victory over England’s third-seeded Tom Walsh, winning 11-8, 11-7, 11-3 in 46 minutes.

Earlier in the tournament, Asim faced a challenging quarter-final against second-seed Cesar Salazar of Mexico. After taking a 2-1 lead, Salazar retired in the fourth game, handing Khan victory with a final scoreline of 12-10, 2-11, 11-7, and 11-0.

Furthermore, he also defeated India’s Veer Chotrani and produced a strong showing against Dillon Huang of the United States.

LAHORE: Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi has held meetings with the mentors and members of the selection committee to review and evaluate the players’ performance and fitness.

The PCB head, as per the statement issued by the board on Sunday, first held a separate meeting with the mentors which was followed by a joint huddle with the selection committee wherein it was agreed to complete the players’ evaluation by the end of the ongoing series.

The two-hour-long meetings came after the national side suffered their sixth consecutive loss in the red-ball format wherein they crumbled against England’s 823-run mammoth total, which resulted in a defeat by an innings and 47 runs in the first Test at the Multan Cricket Stadium.

The home series is part of the ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 and Shan Masood’s men need to improve if they are to preserve their chances in the tournament as the Green Shirts are currently ranked at ninth spot.

Since the Friday’s defeat, the board has already made changes to the national selection committee with the inclusion of former cricketer Aqib Javed, ex-captain Azhar Ali and former International Cricket Council (ICC) umpire Aleem Dar on the panel.

Additionally, Hassan Cheema was also confirmed by the board as the new addition to the committee. Meanwhile, right-handed batter Asad Shafiq retained his membership of the committee.

During the meeting, the PCB chairman issued directions for the improvement in the quality of the pitches, whereas the selection committee and mentors also pitched in with suggestions on related issues.

The huddle was attended by selection committee members Javed, Ali, Dar, Cheema, adviser Bilal Afzal, Domestic Cricket Director Abdullah Khurram Niazi, High-Performance Centre Director Nadeem Khan and mentors Shoaib Malik, Misbah-ul-Haq, Waqar Younis and Saqlain Mushtaq.

Whereas, mentor Sarfaraz Ahmed and selection committee member Asad Shafiq participated via video link.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, reported to Geo News by sources earlier today, star batter Babar Azam was likely to be rested for the upcoming match which is set to commence on October 15 (Tuesday) in Multan.

Insiders said that the suggestion to rest the “out-of-form” former captain has been given by the selectors due to his below-the-par performance in the first Test match with the English side.

Moreover, the team’s playing XI is likely to see the addition of two spinners with the names of left-arm spinner Noman Ali and off-spinner Sajid Khan in consideration.