Dodgers embrace imperfections as another October nears: 'We'll do whatever it takes'
So many times in the last eight years, the Los Angeles Dodgers have been the belles of the October ball, slated to dance last and receive their rightful coronation.
One hundred and four wins in 2017. A dominant 106-win season in 2019. For good measure, another 106-win season in 2021 and, last year, a franchise record 111 wins, which no Dodgers team, L.A. or Brooklyn, no Groomsmen, no nothing, had ever done.
Yet none of those seasons ended in a World Series championship and two of them were short-circuited in the National League Division Series, including a 2022 squad that has dominated the San Diego Padres in 14 of 19 games − until losing three of four to them when it mattered.
This time around, they are wearing far less than their Sunday best – a pitching staff wracked by injury, a Hall of Famer just hoping to squeeze a few key innings out of his left arm should his shoulder allow. Nonetheless, they have neared that summit once again.
The magic number to clinch their 10th NL West title in 11 years is six. They will avoid the vagaries of the new wild card round, sitting back with the Atlanta Braves to await the preliminary survivors.
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Playoff randomness? It can happen to the greatest teams, this they know. So maybe this year’s trial by attrition will serve them well when, by this organization’s standards, the games really matter.
"It’s hard to explain," says Dodgers closer Evan Phillips, one of the club’s great reclamation projects. "The Dodgers have an expectation to be there. All the work we put in in the offseason, on the field and in the front office, organizing the roster, is all with the World Series in mind. I think it sets that goal and that standard. It’s step 1 of that process.
"The regular season, we build toward that goal and work together to raise everybody up and get to our most ideal spot going into the postseason, but sometimes, it’s just the way baseball rolls. Last year we set a franchise record in wins, seemingly are the World Series favorites, and we get knocked out in the first round. Baseball’s a tough game, but everything we do is with the World Series in mind.
"We’ll do whatever it takes again."
The hurdles to vault are not going away and only partially predictable.
The recent arrest of Julio Urías on domestic violence charges – which will almost certainly end his season and Dodgers career – threw the starting rotation into greater flux just as the club embarked on a six-game road trip. They proceeded to split the six games in Miami and Washington and, in Thursday’s game that would have been Urías’s start, saw rookie Ryan Pepiot take a perfect game into the seventh inning.
The Dodgers were not necessarily emboldened by this challenge, mostly just tired after sitting through six hours of rain delays in Washington. Urías’s arrest was his second in his Dodger tenure but coming four years after his first domestic violence suspension, was certainly unforeseen.
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It also enhances the roles rookie hurlers Pepiot, Bobby Miller and perhaps Emmet Sheehan will fill come October.
"We’ve got take the mentality of next man up," says Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas after a four-hit game Sunday. "The guys are seizing the opportunity to take the ball in big games, like Pepiot the other day. He’s probably coming into the game thinking, 'Give us five and we’ll be all right.' He’s been taking over and doing his job – same thing with Emmet, Bobby, those guys have been really good blocking out those distractions outside the clubhouse and trying to keep everything on ourselves.
"It’s a hard test, but we’re looking forward to the challenge."
'We have taken some hits'
It’s easy to forget Rojas was intended to play just a couple times a week, part of the Dodgers’ annual plan to flood the zone with depth, dig even deeper than most teams to exploit matchups and create separation with their checkbook.
But Gavin Lux’s preseason ACL tear in his right knee bumped everyone up a notch. Rojas and utilityman Chris Taylor have started 117 games at shortstop, which might seem a punchless proposition given Rojas’s adjusted OPS of 64 and Taylor’s .233 average and .326 on-base percentage.
Yet they’ve combined for 3.0 WAR, sufficient production that they’re giving little ground at the position on most nights.
Sure, it’s not the gaudy production Trea Turner once provided at the position, nor the significant upside that Lux brings, that the Dodgers were excited to finally exploit fully.
Then again, those guys brought no guarantees when it really mattered, anyway.
"There’s a lot of luck involved," Taylor says of the postseason, during which he has an .815 OPS in 243 plate appearances over 64 games. "I think experience helps as well. But everybody’s different. We have some guys who have a lot of experience in the postseason and that can be advantageous. But then you have guys who have never been there and step their game up, rise to the occasion when they get there.
"But I would take experience over no experience."
Nobody’s as grizzled as Clayton Kershaw, whose first postseason appearance came in 2008 and who was an All-Star and a candidate for his fourth Cy Young Award through most of this first half.
But a shoulder injury that sidelined him for all of July and into August has become a matter of management; healing will come in the offseason. The Dodgers are giving Kershaw, 35, more than a week of rest until his next start, and his ability to withstand the playoff grind is certainly an open question.
It’s a far cry from the best-laid plans, which saw Kershaw, Urías and Dustin May fronting a powerful rotation for the season’s first month. Yet May suffered a flexor tendon tear after just nine starts; he will be out into 2024. Tony Gonsolin, a 2022 All-Star, required Tommy John surgery.
Four days after Urías’s arrest, the Dodgers put to rest any hope World Series hero Walker Buehler would contribute this season; his recovery from Tommy John surgery and a playoff timeline did not intersect.
"We have taken some hits, absolutely. It also creates opportunities," says manager Dave Roberts.
"But I’d be lying to say our starting staff didn’t take a couple hits."
They will lean on young gas and veteran gumption, you might say. For now, rookies Pepiot, Miller, Gavin Stone and Sheehan will fill spots in the rotation. Veteran innings-eater Lance Lynn turned in five sterling starts after his acquisition from the Chicago White Sox; he’s given up 15 earned runs in his last two outings yet might be well-suited to the short playoff leash the Dodgers are all too known for.
Winning time
And lest we forget, these are hardly the gutty little Dodgers. Their smarts will occasionally give way to checkbook diplomacy when the price is right, leaping to acquire potential Hall of Famers Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman when their off-season values, strangely, were low.
Now, Betts and Freeman – guaranteed $375 million and $162 million, respectively - will likely finish in the top three of NL MVP voting.
Still, the first year of their union could not lift them past the NLDS. At the same time, their acquisitions – and the ethos of organizations like the Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays, despite the latter’s lower payroll – is to ensure multiple kicks at the October can, not one furtive run at it.
"I think it’s more they have the expectations they’re trying to win World Series every year," says lefty Ryan Yarbrough, who faced the Dodgers in the 2020 World Series for the Tampa Bay Rays, and now is a valued long man for them. "They’ve been in that position most years.
"But a team that’s been that way and gone deep in the playoffs every year – that’s always on your mind and it’s the goal at the end of the year and you’re excited to be a part of it."
Phillips has played for the two administrations that produced the two best records in the AL this year – the Rays and Baltimore Orioles. He found his footing with the Dodgers, piling up 22 saves this year, and will likely face the highest-leverage spots in the postseason.
It is certainly no accident he and they will have that opportunity once again. At 87-55, they have a shot at 100 wins, not that it matters when it matters.
Steering into the suboptimal now may not yield a different October outcome. But at least they'll have a chance to find out.
"The attention to detail these guys put in, from every standpoint throughout the organization, is second to none in the league," says Phillips. "A combination of those two things allows us to deal with any adversity throughout the year."
And perhaps imperfection will be a more perfect formula this time around.
