Snakes and Batters: Reptile snakes into LA Dodgers dugout during MLB game | Los Angeles

A snake snaked its way through the Los Angeles Dodgers dugout during Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Monday.

The reptile appeared at the start of the fifth inning of the Dodgers' 7-3 loss to the New York Mets. It wasn't big enough to scare anyone.

“I was hoping it would be a rally snake, and we turned a rally right after,” said reserve Brent Honeywell. “But just something to get the guys moving a little differently after everything else.”

The snake was wrapped in a towel and removed by a member of site staff.

“We had Snakes on a Plane, Snakes on a Train and the latest Hollywood hit: Snake in the Dugout,” joked Fox's play-by-play commentator Joe Davis.

The visitor did not have the impact of the goose that landed on the field at Dodger Stadium during another playoff game in 2022. (She was also wrapped in a towel and taken away; a team representative told the Los Angeles Times that she was released but did not provide details.)

This goose was hailed as a good luck charm for the San Diego Padres, who went on to win the division series against their rivals. Padres fans called it the “Rally Goose,” not to be confused with the St. Louis Cardinals' Rally Squirrel, which scurried across home plate in the city in 2011 and caused a stir. The Cardinals won that playoff series and then the World Series.

Other animals were a less auspicious presence. Perhaps the most famous goat in baseball history is a goat that was thrown out of a Chicago Cubs game in 1945 along with its human companion. The human later sent a telegram to the owner of the Cubs declaring a curse on the team. The Cubs lost the World Series that year and didn't win it again until 2016.

What exactly the snake means is unclear – the Dodgers began scoring runs after it appeared, but still lost the game.

“I came out there and he's in the corner – no one could get him out of there,” Honeywell told MLB.com, which pointed out that the same player also encountered an alligator in a minor league dugout in Florida in 2015. “But that’s what we need every now and then – to see something crazy like this.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting