Eight games into the regular season, the Dodgers were riding at their highest, winning eight in a row with seemingly no end in sight. Then, reality hit; the Dodgers are not a perfect team despite the talent they have on paper.
Blowup losses at home by double digits, sweeps suffered at the hands of much inferior teams like the Angels and Pirates, and a cruel summer made the Dodgers look vulnerable. Two of their key starters, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell, had months of their season wiped away due to injury. A shoulder impingement to the prized international talent of the offseason looked to prematurely end his season in May. Mookie Betts forgot that he was an elite hitter before the fans reminded him with a standing ovation. A grand total of 28 players missed time due to injury.
Michael Conforto, Tanner Scott, and Kirby Yates, all veteran free agents signed to bolster the team, have all been very expensive mistakes. They have not played an inning of postseason baseball.
At the trade deadline, the Dodgers did little to address their concerns. One of their acquisitions made just four appearances before undergoing shoulder surgery, ending his chances to help an overtaxed and disastrous bullpen in the final month of the season.
The Dodgers managed to finish the season on a five-game winning streak with a healthy rotation and a relatively improved bullpen. Still, concerns about the team were still alive, especially for a bullpen that ranked in the bottom 10 of baseball in the regular season and an offense that struggled to provide adequate run support for their ace.
The Dodgers unconventionally began the postseason in the Wild Card round facing a young and inexperienced Cincinnati Reds team. There were a pair of eighth inning bullpen meltdowns, but the Dodgers’ offense took care of business in fairly easy fashion with 18 runs over the two games.
The next team standing in their way— the Philadelphia Phillies, a team that took four of six from the Dodgers in the regular season. That was when the rotation showed what they’re fully capable of.
Shohei Ohtani made his postseason debut on the mound, striking out nine while getting the win as the Dodgers offense mounted five runs over the Phillies in the sixth and seventh innings. Blake Snell continued his dominance against the Reds in Game 1, and against the Phillies in Game 2, blanked the NL East champions over six strong innings, increasing his scoreless streak against them to 13 innings dating back to Sept. 17.
The series returned home with the Dodgers needing one more win to advance, but Kyle Schwarber prevented a sweep, causing Yoshinobu Yamamoto to be the first starting pitcher without a quality start in the postseason. The Dodgers’ biggest test came in the following game, where the Dodgers fought tooth and nail in extra innings, eventually capitalizing on Orion Kerkering throwing the series and his season away with an errant throw home.
The Milwaukee Brewers, a team the Dodgers failed to net a single win against in the regular season, stood in their way. Through a Herculean effort, the starting rotation allowed a grand total of three runs against the Brewers all series. Blake Snell faced the minimum over eight innings in Game 1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched the first complete game in the postseason in 15 years in Game 2. Even without a quality start, Tyler Glasnow hurled 5 2/3 innings of just one run ball in Game 3, and to top it off, Shohei Ohtani had arguably the single greatest postseason performance in history to sweep the Brewers out of contention and to bring the Dodgers back to the World Series.
The offense had its fair share of opportunities wasted to pour an avalanche of runs, but with the rotation displaying historic levels of dominance, the Dodgers needed to put up just four runs at most outside of a Game 3 mess in the NLDS. Shohei Ohtani entered Game 4 of the NLCS with just a .158 average, but after pulling off a hat trick on Friday, his average rose to .220 while his .967 OPS now leads the team. The Dodgers as a team now sport the best OPS and most home runs by any NL team in the postseason. Only the Toronto Blue Jays have a better OPS than the Dodgers in October.
The bullpen was the biggest drawback for the Dodgers entering the postseason, and the Dodgers decided to stretch out their starters after the bullpen posted a combined 5.75 ERA over the first two rounds. Roki Sasaki emerged as the de facto closer after dazzling over the final week of the season and NLDS. Sasaki collected saves in both Games 3 and 4, while the bullpen posted an inspiring 2.46 ERA in the four games against Milwaukee.
The quest for defending their title meets the final stage, as they await the winner of the ALCS between the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays, both teams that secured a first round bye. The Dodgers knocked down the two highest seeds in the National League in demoralizing fashion, and with the whole team finding its groove at the right time, they themselves are the only obstacle in their way of repeating.
It hasn’t been done in 25 years. The Dodgers are now one series away from changing that. It’s time for them to ruin baseball.