was filthy Yamamoto tonight,” Kiké Hernandez recapped. “He got a quick 1-2-3. Then another 1-2-3, another zero. Homer. Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, homer, zero, zero. We win.”

By winning back-to-back elimination games — Game 4 in San Diego, Game 5 in L.A. — the Dodgers advance to the National League Championship Series for the sixth time in the past nine years under manager Dave Roberts. The Dodgers are now 6-2 in winner-take-all games with Roberts as manager.

“I thought he was surgical in Game 4 and Game 5,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Roberts. “I thought he had the right feel and pulse for when to make a move, who to go to, and even with that (Alex) Vesia had the soreness in the oblique and he didn’t miss a beat.”

The best-of-seven NLCS will start Sunday night at Dodger Stadium with Game 1 against the New York Mets. Game time is 5:15 p.m. Dodger Stadium might have drawn a different kind of crowd — one carrying pitchforks and torches — if the Dodgers had failed to advance out of the Division Series round for a third consecutive year.

“We have such a fan base and we love that. The expectations are super high. We love that as well,” Friedman said, calling the past two years “a little bit of a DS funk.”

“And whenever we fall short of that, there’s a lot of blame to go around and a lot of disappointed people. We would much rather that than people not caring. The theater of October baseball is all outcome-based. If you have a good outcome, positive things are said and written. If you have a bad outcome, really bad things are said and written.”

A lot was written about how the Padres strutted and taunted their way through a Game 2 victory at Dodger Stadium. By the time the series returned to L.A. for Game 5, the Dodgers had stolen their mojo.

The Padres did not score a run in the final 24 innings of the series, batting .136 (11 for 81) over that time while facing 10 of the 13 pitchers on the Dodgers’ NLDS roster. It is the longest scoreless streak by a Dodgers staff in their postseason history. The final 19 Padres were retired in order.

“You can have whatever plan or script people can talk about, but it comes down to the players and those guys made plays, made pitches and made us all look good,” Roberts said. “If you’re talking about a series MVP, it’s our bullpen, clearly.”

Emboldened by the shutout success of that group in their “bullpen game” in Game 4, the Dodgers played a shell game before announcing their starting pitcher for Game 5. It could be another bullpen game, Roberts said. It could be Yamamoto with an opener, he said.

In the end, the Dodgers decided against asking Yamamoto to do something he had never done before (entering a game in progress) — nor did they want to send the vote of no-confidence it would have been to a pitcher they have signed for another 11 years.

So Yamamoto took the mound for Game 5 with an expectation that he would be on a very short leash.

Yamamoto never strayed. He retired the first five Padres he faced and the last seven in five scoreless innings. The Padres hit six balls with exit velocities of 100 mph or higher — only one of them was a hit. Manny Machado hit 725 feet worth of fly balls in his two at-bats against Yamamoto. Both ended up in Mookie Betts’ glove on the warning track in right field.

“Hats off to him. He really bounced back,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said. “He was wearing what he did in the first one (five runs in three innings in Game 1). He was emotional about it — felt like he didn’t do his job. Everybody was there to pump him up and support him. That happens. Even the best names in the game have had tough times in the playoffs.

“But he came out with a different level of intensity. He was aggressive, put them on the defensive instead of him being on the defensive. He put us in position where we could roll with three or four guys. If he doesn’t do that, you’re opening up the potential for more variables and another guy to maybe not have a perfect night.”

Yamamoto ran into trouble just once.

Kyle Higashioka and Luis Arraez had back-to-back singles in the third inning — the only hits Yamamoto allowed. That brought up Fernando Tatis Jr. He hit a 101.8 mph ground ball right at third baseman Max Muncy, who started an inning-ending double play.

“It was huge,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “One out, Tatis their best hitter up. He got to us this series but we were able to get the double play. Stay up 1-0. That was huge.”

Yamamoto left the mound after the fifth inning with that 1-0 lead Kiké Hernandez gave the Dodgers in the second inning when he ambushed a first-pitch fastball from Darvish.