Blake Treinen and the Dodgers kept the faith and are being rewarded

LOS ANGELES – Blake Treinen has the ball from the final out of the National League Division Series.

The Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander joked that if he wants to sell it, he should call it the “last out of Shohei Ohtani’s first postseason series” ball to boost the value, and he is correct. But he will not be selling it. He used that ball to clinch a Game 5 save, one of the biggest of his life, against the San Diego Padres roughly 12 hours after the birth of his fourth child.

Treinen, 36, has emerged as the shutdown closer in a shutdown Dodgers bullpen, the player manager Dave Roberts has turned to in the most consequential situations all October. He has allowed one run in eight postseason innings while striking out 11 and walking two. He earned a six-out save Sunday night to eliminate the New York Mets, give the Dodgers the NL pennant and send Los Angeles to a high-profile World Series matchup with the New York Yankees.

“That was my only plan right there. From the first inning, the first pitch, I had a lot of contingency plans,” Roberts said of his Game 6 approach. “But at that point, we were going to ride or die with Blake.”

Treinen’s stuff always made him look like a future closer, and the poise with which he has handled those challenging innings lately could fool anyone into thinking success in that role was inevitable. But it was just seven years ago that Dusty Baker named Treinen his Opening Day closer for the World Series hopeful Washington Nationals, and it didn’t go well.

Treinen had the best stuff of anyone in the 2017 Nationals bullpen, but the move was risky: His bowling-ball sinker sometimes got away from him, and he often had outings undone by soft contact because he didn’t induce much swing-and-miss.

Eight outings and two weeks into the job, the Nationals took him out of it. He could not keep men off base. By midseason, he was expendable, gone to the Oakland Athletics in the trade that brought Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to Washington. He was dominant for the Athletics in 2018, then imploded in their wild-card game against the Yankees that October. He was with the Dodgers when they won the World Series in 2020, but he was hardly a lockdown option when it mattered.

“When I was in D.C., I was living and dying on every outing,” Treinen said. “I was like, ‘I got to perform or I’m gone.’ People would say it’s a ‘what have you done for me lately?’ sport, and I would think, ‘I haven’t been doing well lately!’

“But then my wife told me: ‘Hey, if God wants you in the big leagues, there’s nothing man can do about it. Just go play.’ ”

Treinen is a man of deep and outspoken faith. He posts about it – and sometimes about the political causes he believes go with it – on Instagram. Few postgame interviews pass by without a mention of God’s influence on his performance. From his Nationals days to a few days ago at Dodger Stadium, Treinen’s Christianity has always been a major part of his on-field story because it is so crucial to the way he thinks about the game. So, he said, it is also crucial to the process by which the guy who seemed ready to spiral at every late-game moment just a few years ago has turned into a championship-caliber bullpen’s calming force.

“It’s probably just the peace that God’s given me through experiences in my career. Another thing? Perspective on life changes,” he said. “You sit in the bullpen and look around and there are 50,000 fans in San Diego who hate you. And at the end of the day, they can scream all they want, but it doesn’t affect how I go about my business. I control how I respond to things.”

The 2020 season, Treinen said, was a pivot point. In his first season with the Dodgers, they won the World Series in a year when the rest of the world was “getting smacked in the face with a reality check” amid the coronavirus pandemic. It gave him perspective.

Shoulder injuries that struck in 2022 provided another key moment.

After trying and largely failing to pitch through pain for most of the year, Treinen had labrum and rotator cuff surgery that he knew would cost him the 2023 season.

“Having surgery and not knowing if you will ever come back, it’s like: ‘Hey, whatever you’ve got, let it be. It could be gone tomorrow,’ ” he said.

This year, his first full season since 2021, Treinen has looked more dominant than ever. There are physical reasons for that, too: Under the watchful eye of Dodgers coaches, he honed a slider with more horizontal break than the one he had in Washington – call it a sweeper if you must. That pitch looked good for him before he got hurt. It continued to boost his strikeout rate in 2024, helping him get the swing-and-miss he didn’t have when he was relying more on a turbo sinker.

Treinen will be a free agent after this season – and probably a highly coveted one, given his abilities. But his greatest trait might be that newfound sturdiness, a once-unimaginable calm now as palpable on the mound as it is off it.

“I don’t know how many more years I have left playing. I would like to add to a legacy for my kids to see,” Treinen said. “It’s not just have one good year or a couple good years and ride off into the sunset. But as long as you’re doing it, do it for the Lord, and then let it be what it is.

“God will tell me when I’m done. There’s just a peace about it.”