A familiar phrase can be said again in baseball these days. “The Los Angeles Dodgers are the National League West Champions.”
With a 7-2 victory over the Padres on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, the ballclub won its 11th division title in the past 12 seasons and outscored the Milwaukee Brewers to advance to the Wild Card Series with a bye. . During that time, the Dodgers failed to win the West Division only once, but won 106 games and advanced to the NLCS. It’s amazing how consistently good he has been in the regular season.
This time, a few troubling things happened along the way. The Dodgers built a nine-game lead in late June, and despite still holding a seven-and-a-half game lead in late July, they dealt with surges from both the Diamondbacks and Padres, leading to an eight-game lead in late July. By the end of the month, the lead had been cut to three games before being pushed away. Up to six games will be backed up heading into September. However, the Padres continued to attack and the Dodgers’ lead was cut to two games after Monday night’s win at Dodger Stadium. But the Dodgers fought back with back-to-back wins to close out the division.
The 2024 season will be the first time since 2018 that the Dodgers will fall short of 100 wins in a full season. This is a great example of how much adversity the team faced in relative terms. In particular, their rotation was battered by injuries, with only two pitchers starting more than 20 games and no pitcher starting more than 25 games.
They have maintained their winning ways thanks to organizational depth and a strong offense led by three MVPs. Shohei Ohtani has a very good chance of winning the National League MVP this season. The first 50-50 years in MLB history. Teoscar Hernandez, also acquired in the offseason, had a great offensive season. Mookie Betts (when healthy) and Freddie Freeman were also excellent.
Of course, the fact that the Dodgers have set such a high bar for the regular season means the next part is going to be difficult. Just making the playoffs is no longer enough. They won the National League pennant in 2017 and 2018 and won the World Series in 2020, but were 1-6 in the playoffs the past two seasons. If the Dodgers don’t make the playoffs, the season will be considered a failure, which means at least the NLCS and maybe even the World Series. Some even say that losing in the World Series would have been a failure of the season. This is typical of an organization that has achieved many victories.
But for now, the Dodgers have done their job in the regular season. They were once again the best in the West.