Dodgers: Alex Wood drops delightful Joc Pederson quote before Game 4

Dodgers starter Alex Wood had the highest of praise for Joc Pederson in a short snippet on Thursday.

Finally, after two NLCS games stuck in the desert, Mookie Betts’ sprint speed got the Dodgers a cool, 11-run drink of water to open Game 3 of the series.

The offensive heroes were plentiful, but the story of the ridiculously hot start can’t be told without including Joc Pederson, who rocketed a two-out, three-run home run to make it 5-0 prior to Edwin Rios matching his blast length, and the rest of the lineup running and hiding.

All with two outs. Seriously.

Pederson couldn’t help but admire his moonshot, which was the eighth of his playoff career, fourth-most in franchise history, and all the more impressive considering how different the output is from his regular-season efforts.

Pederson is a career .265 hitter in the postseason, with the aforementioned pop in just 132 at-bats. Needless to say, when the calendar flips, the soon-to-be free agent is an entirely different guy.

But when you say “calendar flips,” what month is it that you’re talking about?

Based on what Alex Wood told the media on Thursday, we might all be pronouncing it wrong.

That’s “Joc”-tober with the hard “J,” and don’t you forget it.

If the Dodgers are going to enjoy all the spoils of Joctober, they’re going to need the full offense to get in gear and bring at least an approximation of their efforts in the 15-3 Game 3 masterpiece on Wednesday evening in Texas.

Edwin Rios, who tatered immediately after Pederson in that game, is starting again in Thursday night’s Game 4, and Kiké Hernandez will be manning third base against Bryse Wilson. Chris Taylor, simply “getting a blow” per Dave Roberts, is on the bench.

Ideally, we’ll all be getting extensions on this postseason run into Jocvember, and maybe it’ll be safe enough to plan a parade next Jocpril or Jarch.

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