WASHINGTON -- It is not the first time Dave Roberts has hung everything out on the line in October, with a team and a town forgetting to take a single breath.

Roberts might be as cool and calm as they come, friendly to a flaw at times, but he was a cold-blooded tiger in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, going so far out on a tree limb Thursday night on the national stage that it bowed all the way back to the trunk.

Roberts flipped the script when he used his setup man in the third inning, his closer in the seventh and his Cy Young Award-winning starter for the final two outs of the NLDS. Joe Blanton, Kenley Jansen and Clayton Kershaw all delivered the goods in an arresting drama that would have been rejected on the spot in a manuscript.

If there was no video evidence, it might not be believed. And it all worked because the Los Angeles Dodgers' slugging center fielder (Joc Pederson) homered, the backup catcher (Carlos Ruiz) delivered the go-ahead run on a single, and a star offensive player (Justin Turner) delivered just enough insurance with a two-run triple.

The Dodgers won their 4-3 thriller over the Washington Nationals to advance to the National League Championship Series, where they will face the Chicago Cubs in Game 1 on Saturday.

The magic really began in an hour-long seventh inning that was as thick with promise as another late-inning piece of heroics that has gone down in baseball lore. Roberts, of course, stole the base in the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series for the Boston Red Sox, sparking the rally that changed history.

Boston would come back from a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS, take the World Series and end the Red Sox’s 86-year championship drought.

Where this bit of freelance poetry takes the club remains to be seen, as the Dodgers must now chase down a Cubs team that is trying to make history just as Roberts’ Red Sox team did.

Asked to compare his two most impactful October moments, Roberts was hesitant.

“I think a little bit there are some parallels, but it’s just that for me and this group, there is just a lot of trust,” Roberts said. “And whatever role I ask of these guys, they believe in me and the coaching staff. It’s just so fulfilling.”

The Dodgers had to trust in the process Thursday. First Blanton went fish-out-of-water with his third-inning appearance, starting a parade of five relievers. Julio Urias, who had 15 starts this season and just three relief appearances, was next.

Yet, all of that was in the original plan Roberts had concocted with the front office. But when the game was turned over to rookie Grant Dayton, the entire circuit board went haywire.

Dayton faced two batters without getting an out and Roberts went to Jansen with nine outs remaining before the charter flight could be pointed toward Chicago. Jansen got seven of the nine outs. With his energy fading two outs from the finish line and with two runners aboard, Kershaw was summoned.

It was the same Kershaw who was never supposed to see the light of day in this one. “Absolutely not,” Roberts said before the game when asked if his ace, who last pitched on Tuesday, was available. Of course he absolutely pitched -- and he got the Dodgers out of town with the Nationals closing fast.

“I came to [Roberts], you know, once Kenley went out there in the seventh,” Kershaw said. “I was just kind of doing the math. I don't think Kenley's ever done a six-out save, let alone a nine-out save. He threw 20 pitches in that seventh inning, and I just said, 'I'm going to go get loose, see how I feel and I'll let you know, but I might be able to do this.' That's kind of what happened.

“I went out there, I kind of knew all along that I would have [Daniel] Murphy. If Kenley went one, two, three right there, I'm not getting in the game. But he told me to be ready for Murphy, and I felt fine, so it was good.”

Of course Kershaw’s first batter was Murphy, the hitter that not only tormented the Dodgers in this NLDS, but last year’s too when he was with the New York Mets. Murphy hit two home runs off Kershaw in the playoffs last year.

But with the tying and winning runs aboard, all Murphy could muster this time was a popup to second base. Pinch hitter Wilmer Difo struck out to send the Dodgers streaming onto the infield, with Kershaw at the core of the celebration. The Dodgers won three games in the series. Kershaw pitched in all three.

Yet it almost never happened. The Dodgers were most definitely thinking about using Kershaw in Thursday’s game, but the first instinct was not to have him pitch.

"[Kenta] Maeda and Kersh both had their spikes on [in] the seventh ready to pinch hit, if we needed it because we were down to one player on the bench,” Turner said. “Little did Kersh know that when he was putting on his spikes to pinch hit, he was going to go in and close out the game for us. I can’t say enough about him.”

When the dust finally settled, the 20-year-old Urias earned the victory, but he walked away with so much more. In a span of two Kershaw outs, and the preparation it took to record them, Urias gained even more respect from the pitcher he has looked up to from Day 1.

“I thank God for being able to be at his side,” Urias said through an interpreter. “When I saw him come in the clubhouse and put on his spikes, I knew he was ready to go and I learned a lot about him at that moment. He’s about winning and all that goes through his mind is winning, winning, winning. I’m so glad that everything worked out.”

A night like Thursday might have seemed extreme by baseball standards, but in a tormented season when injuries seemed to arrive on a daily basis, the Dodgers felt prepared for the out-of-order madness that unfolded.

All season long the Dodgers have been cooking without a recipe, learning without a syllabus, building with a makeshift set of tools. They put 28 players on the disabled list, had 40 players on the roster in September and used a franchise record-tying 55 players this season.

“Adversity, and grit and battling,” Turner said, trying to compare Game 5 with the entire season. “Down to the last pitch, just fighting for everything. We’re just glad to be covered in alcohol right now. It feels good.”