At 21 Years and 133 Days, Josue De Paula Is the Youngest Dodgers Position Player in the Postseason in 61 Years

The short version: When Josue De Paula walked to the plate as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning of Sunday night's NLDS Game 2, he made history before he ever took a swing. At 21 years and 133 days old, the Dodgers rookie became the youngest Los Angeles position player to appear in a postseason game in 61 years — the first since 19-year-old Willie Crawford played in Game 6 of the 1965 World Series. The at-bat ended in the final out of a 3-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves that evened the series at a game apiece. The history did not.

Start with the list, because the list is the whole story. Before Sunday, only three Dodgers position players as young as De Paula had ever appeared in a postseason game: Eddie Miskis, a 21-year-old outfielder in the 1947 World Series; Ron Fairly, a 21-year-old outfielder in the 1959 World Series; and Crawford, all of 19, in the 1965 Fall Classic. That is the entire club, across nearly eight decades of franchise history. The only other Dodgers that young in October were pitchers — Johnny Podres in 1955, Don Drysdale in 1956, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, Clayton Kershaw in 2008, Julio Urías in 2016. Of those nine players, only De Paula, Valenzuela, and Urías ever batted in a postseason game at Dodger Stadium, which makes De Paula the youngest Dodgers position player to bat in the postseason in the ballpark's 65-year history.

Now consider how fast this happened. De Paula was born in Brooklyn with Dominican roots, and on September 11 — less than a month ago — the Dodgers called him straight up from Double-A. No Triple-A stop, no detour. Under Andrew Friedman, no position player had ever made that leap, which tells you everything about how the organization views him. In his brief September stint he went 10-for-31 with 11 walks against just five strikeouts, showing the strike-zone judgment that had made him the organization's Minor League Player of the Year — the Branch Rickey Award winner for 2026. Manager Dave Roberts praised his understanding of the zone and his quality of contact, and his calm under pressure. Then the Dodgers put the 21-year-old on the 26-man NLDS roster — 14 position players, 12 pitchers — choosing his left-handed bat over backup catcher Dalton Rushing, who is sidelined with an elbow injury.

De Paula did not pretend it was business as usual. "I was kind of shocked. Yeah, I was shocked," he said when the roster news came down during the bye week. "I was happy. There was a lot of emotions going on at the same time. Yeah, a lot of thoughts going into it, like envisioning how this is going to be. I'm just going along for the ride and see how everything comes to me." The role is new to him — he estimates he pinch-hit once or twice in his entire minor-league career — but he sounded like a kid who had already made peace with the weirdness of it. "I like the adrenaline of it," he said. "At the end of the day this is a game, and I just try to make sure everybody's having fun while we're doing it. Why not kick butt and have fun at the same time?"

Friedman, for his part, didn't sound like a man who had settled. "The way he came up, we obviously think the world of him," the president of baseball operations said. "Watching his poise at the plate, his eye, his impact... he felt like a bullet off the bench in big moments." When the most risk-averse front office in baseball calls a 21-year-old a bullet, you pay attention.

The game around the history was a heartbreaker, and it deserves its telling. The Braves — playing a full bullpen game — chased Dodgers starter Blake Snell after just 3 2/3 innings, his shortest postseason start since 2022. Michael Harris II was the difference: he tripled and scored the go-ahead run on reliever Kris Bubic's wild pitch in the fifth, then doubled home an insurance run off Edgardo Henriquez in the seventh, finishing a home run short of the cycle. The Dodgers' only offense until the ninth came on Freddie Freeman's fourth-inning solo shot, his first home run since September 2. They went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left seven men on. Then, with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, Max Muncy launched one to pull Los Angeles within 3-2 and brought the tying run to the plate — in the person of De Paula. Braves closer Raisel Iglesias retired him for the final out, and the series headed to Atlanta tied 1-1.

That is the cruel and beautiful math of October: the kid's first postseason at-bat came with the season's weight on it, and it ended the game. Nobody in the Dodgers clubhouse will remember the result of the at-bat in a week. They will remember that the organization trusted a 21-year-old with it at all.

The series resumes Tuesday night in Atlanta, with Chris Sale — rested and looming — starting Game 3 for the Braves against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Dodgers are chasing a three-peat, and their margin for error just got thinner. Somewhere in the visiting dugout will be a 21-year-old outfielder who, a month ago, was playing Double-A ball. October has a way of finding its heroes in the least likely places. On Sunday night, for one at-bat, it found Josue De Paula — and the record book will say he belonged.

Previously's baseball desk will track De Paula and the NLDS all series. The Dodgers and Braves meet in Game 3 on Tuesday night in Atlanta.