Kiké Hernández tied David Ortiz with his 17th career postseason home run on October 6, and the blast helped the Dodgers beat Red Sox in NLDS Game 3, 3-1. It was the kind of October swing that keeps pulling Hernández back into the same company as the game’s most reliable playoff sluggers.
The homer came on a night when the Dodgers needed one more victory to move on to another NLCS, and Hernández delivered in the moment that matters most to him. He is not built like a regular-season star, with a.235/.304/.402 line over a 13-year career, yet his October numbers keep climbing toward a different standard.
His postseason record explains why. Hernández is now slashing.272/.338/.493 in the playoffs, with 11 doubles, two triples, 17 home runs and 44 RBI across 25 postseason series. That gap between his ordinary season line and his October production is the point: when the games tighten, his offense has repeatedly grown louder.
The pattern is not new. Hernández hit five home runs for the Red Sox in the 2021 postseason between the ALDS and ALCS, and he also drove in the sacrifice fly that helped walk the Red Sox off into the ALCS. The Dodgers have made the playoffs every year since 2013, which has given Hernández a long runway to build the résumé that now places him alongside David Ortiz, Jim Thome and Aaron Judge with 17 postseason home runs.
That still leaves the same question hanging over the numbers. A player with a regular-season line like Hernández’s does not usually end up tied with Big Papi on a postseason leaderboard, and yet he has done it by turning up in 25 playoff series. The next home run he hits in October will not just add to a total; it will push the standard for what he has become when the calendar changes.
