LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are going to have their worst record in at least seven years, but they’ve once again met one of their foundational goals. The Dodgers are in the playoffs for a 13th year in a row, tied for the second-longest streak in major league history.
Friday’s clinching came with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ loss at home to the Phillies. That was Arizona’s 77th loss of the season, ensuring the Dodgers would finish with a better record. About 15 minutes later, the Dodgers beat the Giants as well to improve to 87-67.
Every other National League team not currently in playoff position has at least 76 losses.
The Dodgers have made the postseason every year since 2013, the first full year of Guggenheim Partners ownership of the team. That matches the New York Yankees from 1995-2007 for the second-longest postseason streak in MLB history. They trail only the Atlanta Braves, who won their division every season there was a postseason from 1991-2005. That’s a 15-year stretch, minus the 1994 season, when the postseason and World Series were canceled during a work stoppage.
“It never gets old. It’s quite the accomplishment. I never take it for granted,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday night, after a brief champagne toast in the clubhouse.
Since the start of 2013, the Dodgers are 1,216-781 (.609), a 99-win pace over 162 games, with 95 more wins than the next-best MLB team. They’ve won at least 90 games in each of the previous 11 full seasons. Only the Yankees, with a dozen straight years from 1947-58, have a longer streak. The Dodgers need four more wins to match those Yankees for most 90-win full years in a row.
In the first dozen seasons of this playoff run, the Dodgers won 11 division titles plus a wild card berth in a (2021) season in which they won 106 games. They are up four games over the Padres, with a magic number of four to add another division title.
“It’s one step,” Roberts said of clinching a playoff spot. “The next step is to win the division, so we’ve still got some work to do. Once we do that, we can focus on the postseason. But just to know that we earned a ticket, and an opportunity, is great.”
This year the most the Dodgers can win is 95 games, which will be their lowest total since 2018, when they needed a divisional tiebreaker — something that doesn’t exist anymore — to win the NL West at 92-71. In between, they won 100 or more games four times, and had a .717 winning percentage during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
How the Dodgers finish can affect the path for the Dodgers in the postseason, especially when having to start in the wild card round. But for the most part, how the team plays in October will determine how they do in October. That 2018 team tripped all over itself for good portions of the regular season but still won a pennant.
This year, the Dodgers bullpen is really fighting it right now, but in an incredible twist the Dodgers starting staff is not only all healthy but thriving. And the offense is nearly back at full strength, and has scored 47 runs in their last seven games against top-notch starting pitchers.
“The rotation is a strength of our ball club, and I don’t think we’ve had a rotation like this in my time here,” Roberts said Thursday. “And we’re as good offensively in this short time, hopefully that’s a sign of things to come. We’re as prepared as we’ve ever been for this.”