Edman relishes chance to get on base for 'all of these superstars'

LOS ANGELES -- Tommy Edman sometimes looks at the names surrounding his own on the Dodgers’ lineup board and pinches himself.

“Getting to be on base for all these guys is pretty special,” he said.

After pursuing him for years -- Edman is, after all, the perfect Dodger: a switch-hitter who can start in center field one day and at shortstop the next -- the Dodgers have the 29-year-old entrenched at short for a team playing on without the injured Miguel Rojas.

Edman provided a lift on Monday with three of L.A.'s five hits, including a two-run single in the sixth inning that lifted the Dodgers back from an early deficit into the thick of what became a 7-3 loss to the Mets in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

“We’ve known about Tommy for a long time,” said Kiké Hernández, another of the Dodgers’ many moving pieces. “He’s not new to the league, not new to moving around. We know what type of defender he is, and the fact that he’s playing short now -- it doesn’t change anything about how we feel about Tommy. We feel good anywhere we put him.”

The Dodgers as a whole, though, weren’t feeling good for much of Game 2 after falling into a 6-0 deficit on Mets third baseman Mark Vientos’ second-inning grand slam. But Max Muncy homered in the fifth inning to awaken the Los Angeles crowd, then Edman hit the second of his three singles to drive home two more runs in the sixth, cutting that six-run deficit in half.

The Dodgers were poised for more but didn’t deliver. Muncy followed Edman’s hit with a walk to load the bases for Hernández, who grounded into a double play.

"We didn't get the big hit when we needed it, but we had opportunities,” Hernández said. “I probably had the two biggest at-bats of the game and I didn't come through. Even the fact that we fell behind early, by the end of the game we were one swing away. We're staying positive."

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Said Edman: “Getting down early is never easy. We had some opportunities to score and unfortunately we just couldn’t cash in.”

Edman came to the Dodgers at the Trade Deadline -- with a year and a half left on his contract -- as part of the three-team trade with the Cardinals and White Sox that also netted L.A. a valuable reliever in Michael Kopech. Edman was still rehabbing from offseason wrist surgery at the time, so he didn’t debut with the Dodgers until Aug. 19, but he proved a valuable piece down the stretch with 22 starts in center field and 13 at shortstop.

Edman was the Dodgers’ starting center fielder in the postseason until Game 3 of the NLDS against the Padres, when Rojas could no longer play through a hip injury. Since then, Edman has been at short, where he’s more valuable than ever with second baseman Gavin Lux fighting through his own hip injury.

“That’s been my career, I’ve moved all over,” said Edman, who made his Major League debut with the Cardinals in 2019. “Coming here I didn’t know what my role would be, and it’s shifted a couple of times already. I’ve enjoyed being able to contribute to the extent I have.”

Does it change anything to know he’ll be manning one position until further notice?

“For the most part, I’ve always been able to look ahead and see what the next week or so will bring,” Edman said. “When it looks like I’ll be playing infield, I’ll focus on taking more grounders, and then when it looks like the outfield, I’ll make sure to get out there and take my fly balls. Regardless of where I’m playing, I try to get a good mix of work at both.”

Winning makes the work worth it. So does being part of historic moments, like on Aug. 23 at Dodger Stadium when Edman’s ninth-inning single was part of the set-up for Shohei Ohtani’s walk-off grand slam, which made Ohtani the fastest player to reach the 40-40 threshold in a season.

“From that point on, I’ve had a chance to be on base for all of these superstars I’m playing with,” Edman said. “It’s been a fun experience.”