By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Playoff baseball has a strange way of living up to your expectations in a way that you never expected. Thursday evening, when the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Washington Nationals 4-3 in Game 5 of the NLDS, that was exactly what happened.
After falling behind 1-0, the Dodgers offense exploded in the seventh inning for four runs. Following a Joc Pederson home run, former Philadelphia Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz pinch-hit for former Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, and delivered one of the biggest hits in his career by singling home Austin Barnes and allowing Howie Kendrick, who would eventually score later in the inning, to advance to second base. Ruiz also scored the fourth run in the seventh inning.
The Nationals cut the 4-1 lead to 4-3 when Chris Heisey hit a 373-foot home run in the seventh inning, but the combination of both Kenley Jansen and Clayton Kershaw allowed the Dodgers to hold on and close out the NLDS by one run.
Ruiz had the game-winning hit in Game 3 of the 2008 World Series, so this wasn't the most important hit of his career, but it's certainly on the short list.
While Chase Utley batted only .231 in this series, another 2008 Phillies hero was key in leading the Dodgers to the NLCS. Joe Blanton, who had a superb regular season for the Dodgers out of the bullpen, threw 3.2 innings in this series, including and 1.1 of an inning tonight, and posted a 0.00 ERA.
Ironically, Jayson Werth, who was a Phillies hero a lifetime ago, was left stranded on first base when Kershaw came in to close out the final two outs of the series.
