Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dodgers defeat Reds in Game 2 to advance to NLDS

Now comes the hard part.

The Cincinnati Reds are shreds of what’s next.

The wild-card series is a joker compared to the waiting full house.

The Dodgers easily swept the best-of-three duel with the overmatched Reds on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium with a frolicking 8-4 victory … just in time to uneasily hike into the home of heated hardball.

All due respect to the Cincinnati Reds.

But the Dodgers’ first real test of their World Series title defense is about to begin this weekend.

After advancing past the plucky Reds and their 83-win roster in a best-of-three wild card series this week, the Dodgers will now face a true powerhouse in the best-of-five National League Division Series, matched up against a Philadelphia Phillies team facing unfinished business in the postseason.

For years, the Phillies have been building toward contention. In each of the last four years, they’ve reached the playoffs while increasing their regular-season win total.

⚾ Dodgers 8, Reds 4 — FINAL

The Dodgers are moving on to facing the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Division Series after beating Cincinnati in Game 2 to take the best-of-three wild-card series.

Game 1 between the Dodgers and Phillies will be Saturday (time TBD).

Top of the ninth: Roki Sasaki took over on the mound, striking out Spencer Steer and Gavin Lux. Austin Hays lined out to short to end the game.

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⚾ Dodgers 8, Reds 4 — Eighth inning

Top of the eighth: Emmet Sheehan relieved Blake Treinen and gave up a single to Gavin Lux. He then walked Austin Hays.

Sal Stewart followed with a single to right field, scoring Gavin Lux from second to make it 8-3 Dodgers.

Sheehan walked Elly De La Cruz. Tyler Stephenson hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score Hays and make it 8-4 Dodgers.

On a 1-2 count to Will Benson, Dave Roberts removed Sheehan from the game for reliever Alex Vesia, who struck out pinch hitter Miguel Andujar (taking over mid-at-bat for Benson) on his first pitch. Vesia walked Matt McLain to load the bases.

Vesia got out of the jam with a slider on the outside corner for a called third strike on TJ Friedl that elicited a roar of approval from Roberts in the dugout.

Bottom of the eighth: Max Muncy grounded out, Andy Pages struck out and Kiké Hernández grounded out in a 1-2-3 frame.

⚾ Dodgers 8, Reds 2 — Seventh inning

Top of the seventh: Tyler Stephenson grounded out before Yoshinobu Yamamoto walked Will Benson. Yamamoto struck out Matt McLain before walking TJ Friedl.

That ended Yamamoto’s night, with Blake Treinen taking over in relief. Yamamoto gave up four hits, two runs (both unearned), struck out nine and walked two over an MLB career-high 113 pitches.

Spencer Steer grounded out to short to end the inning.

Bottom of the seventh: Miguel Rojas singled on a ground ball to third, beating Sal Stewart’s throw to first. Ben Rortvedt moved Rojas to second on a sacrifice bunt.

Reds reliever Tony Santillan intentionally walked Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts made the Reds pay, hitting a run-scoring double down the right-field line — his third double and fourth hit of the game — to give the Dodgers an 8-2 lead.

McLain made a jumping grab at second to prevent Ohtani from scoring and get Freddie Freeman out at first. Teoscar Hernández then grounded out to short to end the inning.

⚾ Dodgers 7, Reds 2 — End of the sixth inning

Bottom of the sixth: Kiké Hernández hit a dribbler off the third-base bag for a leadoff single. Miguel Rojas grounded out to first, moving Hernández to second. Ben Rortvedt reached base when first baseman Sal Stewart made a bad throw to pitcher Nick Martinez covering first.

Shohei Ohtani singled to right field to drive in Hernández from third and give the Dodgers a 4-2 lead.

Mookie Betts followed with an RBI double down the left-field line to score Rortvedt and make it 5-2 Dodgers. It was Betts’ third hit tonight.

Teoscar Hernández kept the rally going, hitting a two-run double to center field to drive in Ohtani and Betts and make it 7-2 Dodgers.

The rally ended Nick Martinez’s stint on the mound for the Reds in favor of Tony Santillan.

The Reds intentionally walked Max Muncy to reload the bases. Andy Pages popped out to right field. Kiké Hernández, in his second at-bat of the inning, popped out to cap the frame.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Reds 2 — Sixth inning

Top of the sixth inning: Cincinnati’s TJ Friedl led with a line drive to right field before Spencer Steer singled on a sharp liner to center. Gavin Lux loaded the bases with a high-bouncing chopper off the plate that a charging Max Muncy fielded but didn’t have enough time to make a play at first.

Shortstop Mookie Betts fielded a grounder from Austin Hays and threw to home plate to force out Friedl.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto then struck out Sal Stewart and Elly De La Cruz to get out of the bases-loaded jam and preserve the lead. Yamamoto let out a celebratory scream after striking out De La Cruz with an 80-mph curveball.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Reds 2 — End of the fifth inning

Top of the fifth: Yoshinobu Yamamoto oversees another 1-2-3 innings, striking out Tyler Stephenson and McLain along the way. Yamamoto has retired 13 straight.

Bottom of the fifth: Freddie Freeman lined out to second and Teoscar Hernández grounded out to third. Nick Lodolo hit Max Muncy with a pitch before Andy Pages grounded to third, allowing Ke’Bryan Hayes to throw out Muncy before he reached second.

⚾ Dodgers 3, Reds 2 — End of the fourth inning

Top of the fourth: The Reds go down in order, with Austin Hays and Sal Stewart grounding out and Elly De La Cruz flying out to center.

Bottom of the fourth: Max Muncy singled on a hard-hit grounder that deflected off the glove of diving Reds second baseman Matt McLain. Zack Littell struck out Andy Pages.

Kiké Hernández followed with a double to the wall in right-center field, scoring Muncy to tie the game.

Miguel Rojas then drove in Hernández on a flare that dropped just inside the right-field line to give the Dodgers a 3-2 lead.

Reds manager Terry Francona pulled Littell in favor of reliever Nick Lodolo after Rojas’ RBI single. Ben Rortvedt then singled on a soft grounder toward first that a charging McLain couldn’t cleanly field.

Shohei Ohtani flied out right field and Mookie Betts flied out to center to end the inning.

⚾ Reds 2, Dodgers 1 — End of the third inning

Top of the third: TJ Friedl grounded out sharply to Freddie Freeman at first base. Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out Spencer Steer before Gavin Lux flied out to left field.

Yamamoto has given up one hit and struck out four on 53 pitches.

Bottom of the third: Ben Rortvedt led with a double down the left-field line. Shohei Ohtani followed with a first-pitch bouncer to second base that moved Rortvedt to third.

Mookie Betts then singled on hanging slider from Zack Littell to right-center field to score Rortvedt.

Reds second baseman Matt McClain made a quick read on a liner off Freddie Freeman’s bat to make a diving stop and throw him out at first. Teoscar Hernández grounded out to short to end the inning.

The Dodgers are one for six with runners in scoring position.

⚾ Reds 2, Dodgers 0 — End of the second inning

Top of the second: Yoshinobu Yamamoto struck out Tyler Stephenson. Ke’Bryan Hayes then grounded out to third before Yamamoto got Matt McLain to swing at a 95.6-mph sinker for his third strikeout of the night.

Bottom of the second: Max Muncy lined out to right field. Zack Littell hit Andy Pages with a pitch. Kiké Hernández then grounded out to third base before Miguel Rojas lined out to short.

⚾ Reds 2, Dodgers 0 — End of the first inning

Top of the first: Kiké Hernández made an incredible, running catch at the warning track in left field to prevent a lead-off hit from TJ Friedl. Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto then hit Spencer Steer with a pitch.

Former Dodger Gavin Lux shattered his bat on a force out to second, beating Mookie Betts’ double-play throw to first base.

Teoscar Hernández let an Austin Hays pop fly bounce off his glove for an error, allowing Lux to advance to third and Hays to reach second.

Rookie Sal Stewart followed with a two-run single under a diving Freddie Freeman to give the Reds an early lead.

Yamamoto struck out Elly De La Cruz to end the inning.

Bottom of the first: Shohei Ohtani grounded out to first before Mookie Betts hit a double into the left-field corner off Reds starter Zack Littell.

Freeman struck out and Teoscar Hernández popped out to right field to strand Betts.

Imagine if the Dodgers hadn’t scored a gazillion runs.

Shudder.

Imagine how the majority of spectators would have tensed up when manager Dave Roberts trudged to the mound to remove Alex Vesia if the game was actually close.

Hoo boy.

Imagine the devastation the Dodgers would have experienced if Jack Dreyer’s bases-loaded walk legitimately endangered their chances of winning.

The Dodgers are not here for conventional wisdom. The Dodgers are here to win the World Series.

So what if an unforeseen hurdle appeared in front of their October path? The Dodgers are on the verge of turning that hurdle into an unexpected but well-planned advantage on their quest to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years.

Conventional wisdom says the odds favor a team with a bye, because that team can set up its pitching rotation for the division series just the way it wants while its opponent burns through its best arms in the wild-card series. The Dodgers are one win away from storming through the wild-card series and setting up their pitching rotation for the division series just fine, thank you very much.

One way to keep Dodger relievers from ruining the team’s postseason run is to keep the bullpen gate closed for as long as possible.

Blake Snell gave that strategy a whirl in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series Tuesday, pitching a solid — sometimes brilliant —- seven innings. But even then he and his teammates had to wait out the nightly bullpen meltdown before escaping with a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

“Blake was fantastic tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You could see he was in complete control. The fastball was great. The change-up was plus.

“Kind of mixing and matching and he really was in control the entire game.”

This isn’t a series, it’s calisthenics.

The Dodgers shouldn’t be here battling baseball’s junior varsity, and they know it, and they’re intent on pounding and pitching their way out of this embarrassing situation as quickly as possible.

Wild-card round? The defending champions are nobody’s wild card.

The Cincinnati Reds? Human byes.

October came a day early to Chavez Ravine on Tuesday and the shouldn’t-be-here Dodgers welcomed it with their annoyance, tying a club postseason record with five homers and dismantling the Reds 10-5 in the opener of a three-game wild-card series that should be mercifully completed by midweek.

For seven innings, it was a rout. Then, it almost got too close for comfort.

Welcome to the Dodgers’ 2025 postseason, where the offense can be dynamic, the rotation is expected to be dominant, and the bullpen ... well, will be a torturous adventure.

Starting another October campaign before the calendar had even flipped from September, thanks to their inability to earn a first-round bye in pursuit of a second straight World Series title, the Dodgers took Game 1 of the best-of-three National League wild-card series on Tuesday night, powering past a seemingly outmatched Cincinnati Reds club with a 10-5 victory at Dodger Stadium.

For most of the night, things went according to script.

Here are the Game 2 starting lineups for the Dodgers and Reds on Wednesday:

The Dodgers continue their National League wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium in Game 2 on Wednesday at 6:08 p.m. PDT.

The game will be televised on ESPN and ESPN Deportes. Radio broadcasts of the game will be on 570 AM and 1220 AM (Español) in the Los Angeles area.

Here are the latest betting odds for Game 2 of the wild-card series:

Here’s the TV schedule for Game 3 of the best-of-three series (if necessary):

Game 3: Thursday, 6:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium | ESPN, ESPN Deportes