Chris Taylor’s walk-off home run lifts Los Angeles Dodgers to NL wild-card win

LOS ANGELES — One big swing by Chris Taylor sent the Los Angeles Dodgers soaring and the St. Louis Cardinals crashing.

Taylor hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Dodgers a 3-1 victory Wednesday night in a scintillating National League Wild Card Game.

Justin Turner homered early and the 106-win Dodgers advanced to a best-of-five division series against the NL West champion San Francisco Giants, who won 107 games to barely hold off rival Los Angeles for the division title. Game 1 is Friday night in San Francisco.

“That’s gonna be fun. Yeah, two of the best regular-season records of all time. We’ve been battling all year, so I expect a hard-fought series,” Taylor said.

The Dodgers celebrated on the field before heading into their clubhouse to continue the party. Champagne and beer were poured over the heads of shirtless, goggle-wearing players, thrilled to have stayed alive for a shot at their Bay Area adversary.

“One of the great rivalries in sports,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s happening.”

The sellout crowd of 53,193 at Dodger Stadium hung on every pitch as the tension of a tie game built from the fourth inning on. Fans waved blue towels, futilely urging on the few balls launched into the outfield only to see them caught in a winner-take-all matchup between two of the NL’s most storied and successful franchises.

The crowd was on its feet in the ninth, anxiously waiting to see if the defending World Series champions could pull out a must-have win. Cody Bellinger got the Dodgers started when he drew a two-out walk from T.J. McFarland. Alex Reyes entered to face Taylor, and Bellinger stole second.

“That’s huge, knowing I don’t have to do too much,” said Taylor, batting in the No. 9 slot after entering to play left field as part of a double switch in the seventh. “It kind of settled me down a little bit.”

Taylor then sent a 2-1 breaking ball into the left-field pavilion, triggering an explosion of cheers.

The versatile veteran struggled in September because of a recurring neck injury, and he came off the bench in the Dodgers’ most important game of the season.

“Honestly, I was just trying to hit a single. Not trying to do too much,” Taylor said after launching the fourth walk-off homer in Dodgers postseason history. “He gave me a good slider to hit and I was able to get it up in the air.”

It was the fifth game-ending home run in a winner-take-all postseason game after Pittsburgh’s Bill Mazeroski in the 1960 World Series, the Yankees’ Chris Chambliss in the 1976 AL Championship Series and Aaron Boone in the 2003 ALCS, and Toronto’s Edwin Encarnación in the 2016 AL wild-card game.

Taylor also made a nifty defensive play in the eighth, robbing Edmundo Sosa of a hit for the second out.

Tommy Edman dropped a one-out single into right off closer Kenley Jansen in the top of the ninth and stole second. Paul Goldschmidt took a called third strike and Tyler O’Neill went down swinging to end the threat. Edman went 3-for-5 with a run scored.

The Dodgers’ bullpen stymied the St. Louis hitters, allowing just a pair of singles after the fifth inning.

“The whole bullpen stepped up. We’ve been doing it the whole…