Dodgers Interview: Tommy Tanks Starts the Postseason off with a Bang!
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers punched first and kept swinging, and Tommy Edman was in the middle of it. His home run followed Teoscar Hernández’s and blew the place up. Later he exited, more precaution than panic, then talked through the night with the same steady tone he plays with. Game 1 goes in the books 10–5. The job now is to stack another.
Edman started with the plan on offense: “We wanted to put pressure on them early and we did a good job of that today.” He pivoted to the man on the mound. “He was great,” Edman said of Blake Snell. “He’s been lights out ever since he came off the injured list, and he’s the guy you want starting that first game. He shut them down and did a good job of letting our offense work.”
On the power show at the top, Edman grinned. “It was awesome,” he said. “Teo had some huge homers last year, giant hits in the playoffs, and he comes through in those big moments. It was a great start to the postseason today.” The back-to-back felt like a carryover from September. “We kind of just continued the momentum from the end of the season,” he said. “We were playing really well at the end of the year, and we were fortunate we only had a day off and got right back into it and continued swinging it well like we had.”
His own exit came with an update, not alarm. “It’s feeling better day by day,” Edman said of the ankle. “They saw an opportunity for me to get off my feet a little bit and feel fresh for tomorrow. It’s a little bit of management at this point, but it’s feeling good overall.” Position-wise, they’ll read it daily. “It all kind of depends day to day depending on how the ankle feels,” he said. “I’ll keep testing it out, see what I’m able to do, whether I’m able to play out or not. It depends on how it recovers.”
He was asked about focus and whether October really flips a switch. Edman kept it balanced. “I don’t think there’s a lack of focus in the middle of the season,” he said. “We have a group of guys with postseason experience and we know what it takes to win in these games. We do a good job of slowing the game down. Having that experience definitely helps. We have guys who are getting locked in at the right time.”
Even at less than perfect health, he pointed to competing. “Even though I don’t necessarily feel my best right now, it’s all about competing and finding a way to win the game,” Edman said. “Whatever you feel like before the game doesn’t really matter. It’s about what happens in the box. I try to narrow it down to that one moment.”
Last October is still in the rearview, but it informs the approach. “I had a good postseason last year,” he said. “I felt like I was swinging it pretty well at the end of this year, too. I’m continuing the work I’ve been doing and hopefully I can have a similar experience this year.”
Snell’s length got another nod, because everyone in that clubhouse knows what seven innings means the rest of the week. “He was awesome,” Edman said. “Especially in the playoffs, to have a seven-inning start is really impressive. A lot of starting pitchers have a quick trigger on them as soon as they get into trouble, but he didn’t really get into trouble until that last inning he had. There was no reason to get anybody warmed up. He made sure our bullpen only had to cover two innings and really set us up well for tomorrow.”
He closed with a simple picture of what the middle of the order looked like from his seat. “It was a lot of fun,” Edman said. “A lot of feet of home runs. The second one that Sho hit was one of the farther home runs I’ve seen here, and then Teo hitting a couple missiles as well. That’s our offense, the explosive nature of our offense.”
Back-to-back in the third. Seven steady from the starter. One in the bank. Edman’s words matched the night: “We continued the momentum,” he said. “Now we get ready for tomorrow.”
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