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.”
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…