Winning a baseball game in the playoffs is extremely difficult. Just ask the other 26 teams in Major League Baseball that are home watching the last four left standing. But winning a baseball game in the playoffs without your all-star first baseman, your starting second baseman, and shortstop, against the hottest pitcher in the postseason is even more difficult.

Mission Impossible? Not for the arm-flailing, sunflower seed throwing, home run hitting Los Angeles Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts both homered in Game 4, and the Dodgers defeated the New York Mets in blowout fashion, 10-2, on Thursday night at Citi Field. Los Angeles leads the series 3-1, and are now one win away from reaching their first World Series since 2020.

On paper, Game 4 looked like a mismatch for the Dodgers. No Freddie Freeman, no Gavin Lux, with Andy Pages, hitting .167 in center, Chris Taylor, who hadn’t recorded a hit this postseason at second, and Tommy Edman batting cleanup.

When was the last time you saw a 5’8”, 180-pound, shortstop in the four-hole? But none of that mattered for the Dodgers on Thursday. It was simply business as usual. The business of baseball is one Dodgers’ President of Baseball Operations, Andrew Friedman, knows well.

He likes to construct his roster with as much versatility and flexibility as possible. He’s got more Swiss Army knives at his disposable than the entire population of Switzerland. When the Dodgers were sputtering in mid-April, losers of seven of n.