{"id":814689,"date":"2026-09-26T11:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/814689\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:33:16","slug":"dodgers-will-need-more-than-ace-filled-rotation-to-three-peat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/814689\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers will need more than ace-filled rotation to three-peat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SAN FRANCISCO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0This is the 60th anniversary of the 1966 World Series<\/a>, in which the losing team did not score for the final 33 innings of the series.<\/p>\n

That losing team was the Dodgers<\/a>. Over the final three games of the series, Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally of the Baltimore Orioles each pitched a complete-game shutout.<\/p>\n

That art of pitching is not in style today. Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> pitched two complete games last October, but he cannot pitch every game, even if he left that impression upon the Toronto Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 clearest and cleanest route to a three-peat nonetheless rests upon the four shoulders of Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal<\/a>, Blake Snell<\/a> and Tyler Glasnow<\/a>. If the four aces can do to October opponents what the 1966 Orioles did to the Dodgers, or some reasonable 21st century facsimile, we\u2019ll see you at the parade.<\/p>\n

Does Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> believe his starting pitchers will have to carry the load in October?<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope not,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s 2-0 victory<\/a> over the San Francisco Giants offered two encouraging swings. Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> and Andy Pages<\/a> each hit home runs, a reminder that a properly tuned Dodgers offense runs on more than Shohei Ohtani<\/a>, Mookie Betts<\/a>, Freddie Freeman<\/a> and Will Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Skubal scattered three hits and struck out 10 in seven scoreless innings, which would have gone for naught without the Hern\u00e1ndez and Pages home runs. Given that the Dodgers were playing the Giants and the remains of their depleted roster, it was something of a warning sign: this could happen against a postseason team.<\/p>\n

No team can plan to score a lot of runs against the Dodgers\u2019 starters. The opposing game plan would be to neutralize them and keep the game close enough to where one or two big swings can make the difference. The Giants, who have the National League\u2019s second-worst record, almost pulled it off.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get to the postseason, they\u2019re going to try to eliminate Shohei and try to make other guys beat you,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo it always sort of comes to the middle to the bottom of the order, where you\u2019ve either got to get guys on base or get hits, get big hits.\u201d<\/p>\n

In October, Hern\u00e1ndez is who you want at bat. He has homered in six of the seven postseason series he has played for the Dodgers, including each of the last five. In 33 postseason games for the Dodgers, he has driven in 25 runs.<\/p>\n

For most players, offensive production drops in October, when batters face the best pitchers from the best teams. For Hern\u00e1ndez, his career OPS is .796 in the regular season and .792 in the postseason.<\/p>\n

\"Andy <\/p>\n

Andy Pages, right, is congratulated by Dodgers teammate Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez after hitting a home run against the Giants in the second inning Friday.<\/p>\n

(Jeff Chiu \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

And, for all his summer struggles, he is batting .354 this month, with an OPS just shy of 1.000. He\u2019ll be, as the league-issued hoodies used to say, October ready.<\/p>\n

For Pages, however, last October was cruel.<\/p>\n

This October was not looking particularly promising, either. Pages missed 27 games because of a broken hand, leaving him the final six games of the regular season to get his swing back into rhythm.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think that you take five weeks off,\u201d Roberts said, \u201cthat your timing is going to be off a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, so good: five hits in 12 at-bats, including the home run Friday.<\/p>\n

Pages ended the regular season last year with four hits in his final 28 at-bats. That, Roberts said, tells him this October will be different for Pages.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the one thing is the confidence, how he went into last October really scuffling, and it sort of bled into October,\u201d Roberts said, \u201cwhere I think right now he feels really confident, swinging the bat well, and the hope is that this one bleeds into October as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think it\u2019s definitely a different result going into October, and then also his headspace. There\u2019s a lot more confidence this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2025, when the Dodgers won the World Series, they ranked second among the 30 major league clubs in runs scored, and in home runs. In 2024, when they won the World Series, they ranked third in runs scored, and in home runs.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers rank fourth in runs scored this year, and seventh in home runs. The offense is down some, if not much. In all the national postseason hype, the Dodgers projections will boil down to one sentence: Can anyone stop those starters?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at first glance that\u2019s what you see in our ballclub,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut we have a lot of talented, really good hitters and I hope they work hand in hand and not just our pitching and defense carry us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Dodgers, the postseason opens one week from Saturday. If the Dodgers roll out the 1966 playbook, their October stay will be short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0This is the 60th anniversary of the 1966 World Series, in which the losing team did not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":814690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[1384,5,99174,39,14,3930,2335,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4,99173,1595,7377,1602,382,235,1528,81674,1039],"class_list":["post-814689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-andy-pages","tag-baseball","tag-complete-game-last-october","tag-dodgers","tag-game","tag-hit","tag-home-run","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mlb","tag-october-opponent","tag-postseason","tag-regular-season","tag-roberts","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-team","tag-teoscar-hernandez","tag-three-peat","tag-world-series"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117337129507066779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}