Whicker: Winning NL West nice, but for Dodgers, winning last WS game a must

Los Angeles Dodgers manager manager Dave Roberts, raises his hat in celebration after his club clinched the National League West on Tuesday with a victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Photo: Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press.

September 16, 2022

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

You probably aren’t driving the same car you were driving when the Dodgers began winning National League West championships.

In some cases you (A) learned to drive during this period or (B) were forced to quit.

It began in 1973, the first full year of management by Guggenheim Partners. It was interrupted in 2021, when the Giants won 107 games to the Dodgers’ 106, but the Dodgers straightened up the house on Tuesday when they clinched in Arizona.

The Dodgers will win 100 games for the third consecutive full season and have a theoretical shot at 116, tying a major league record.

They now have become a constant, to the extent that their fans feel the universe has slipped off its moorings when they lose any game to anyone, and they have been a major power source for the champagne business. Since 2013, they have celebrated a playoff spot, a division title, a Division Series, a Championship Series or a Wild-Card win 21 times.

Justin Turner has had 352 plate appearances in post seasons alone. This year they had a run-differential of 320 at the time of the division clinching. The all-time record is 411, held by the 1939 Yankees. The Dodgers are currently sixth, and three of the five teams ahead of them won World Series. The exceptions were the 1902 Pirates, who played the year before the Series came into being, and the 1906 Cubs, who were upset by the White Sox.

So there is nobody you’d rather be than the current Dodgers. But if things go awry in early November, or earlier, there will be no sadder clubhouse. From the beginning of spring training, and particularly when the Dodgers signed Freddie Freeman away from the Braves, the narrative was set. Win or fail.

In that sense the Dodgers resemble the Oakland A’s of the late 80s and early 90s, the Atlanta Braves between 1991 and 2005, and the Baltimore Orioles for a 20-year span beginning in 1964. They all made history and won rings, but they are also defined by the pile that they left on the table.

The Dodgers have found the final game the hardest to win. Their only world championship was 2020, when they beat Tampa Bay in a sparsely populated new ballpark in Texas. There was no Dodger Stadium party and no downtown L.A. parade. It was also at the end of a 60-game season.

It is true that everyone had to play that schedule and the Dodgers handled it better than their competition. But most of the other baseball champs had to navigate the 162-game wringer, and it remains a hole in the resume, no matter how nice the rings are.

Dodger fans will tell you they were cheated out of the 2017 title by Houston, but Game 7 of that Series was in Dodger Stadium, away from the trash cans, and the Dodgers lost it. Otherwise, their post-season bids have ended in bullpen misadventures, strange heroics from the likes of Howie Kendrick and Eddie Rosario, and mostly the Dodgers’ inability to get runners home when needed.

Maybe it’s a function of never really needing to, during their annual cruises through the NL West. Even this juggernaut is only 8-9 in one-run games. The Guggenheims have averaged 97.2 wins since 2013 and have been to three World Series, winning one.

The Braves, who won 14 consecutive division titles, averaged 97.3 wins between ‘91 and ‘05 (without counting the truncated ‘94 season). They went to five World Series and won one.

The Athletics, who earlier had won three consecutive Series beginning in 1972, averaged 97.2 wins from ‘88 through ‘92. They went to three World Series but only won one, the Earthquake Series of ‘89.

The Orioles averaged 94.7 wins in their two decades of excellence, and visited eight World Series, winning three. However, their peak teams were 1969 through 1971, when they topped 100 wins each year. The ‘69 Orioles were the victims of the Miracle Mets. They beat Cincinnati the next year, lost to the Pirates in seven the year after that.

Losing a World Series combines the worst elements of exhaustion and defeat. To look behind is like staring at an eclipse. To look ahead is just as painful – you’re already a month behind the rivals who didn’t make the playoffs at all.

To gather oneself and get through the endless summers with the same level of excellence is a rare thing, not celebrated enough. What the Dodgers have done is more impressive than the Giants making three playoff appearances in five years, beginning in 2010. But since the Giants won the World Series all three times, the bragging rights stay Up North.

Nor have the Dodgers won through dollar diplomacy alone. It is true they lead off most games with ex-MVPs Mookie Betts and Freeman, and their payroll is the highest around. It’s also true that they won 104 games in 2017, and on many of those nights, five of their regular players were making the minimum.

The Dodgers still fall back on player drafting and development, which is why they could trade for Max Scherzer, Trea Turner and Betts and why they still rank high in any list of viable prospects.

Starting pitchers Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urias, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin and the injured Walker Buehler were all drafted and developed by the Dodgers.

Again the Dodgers lead the National League in runs scored and runs prevented. But in some ways this will be their bumpiest road to the Series. Thanks to the new playoff format, they will get a bye and meet the winner of a best-of-3 series between No. 4 and No. 5.

Atlanta, their conqueror last year, will be No. 4 unless it catches the Mets, and Philadelphia or San Diego are the top candidates for No. 5.

If they survive that, the Dodgers would have to deal with the Mets and their up-front pitchers, or the explosive Cardinals (hello, Albert Pujols). If they survive THAT, they’re likely facing the Yankees or their friends from Houston in the big one.

The good news is that time is kind to those who are consistent. Atlanta summers are leavened by Hall of Fame inductions from those days. Baltimoreans, deprived of happiness for so long, tell their grandkids about Frank and Brooks Robinson, and their endless supply of nine-inning arms.

And when Bay Area old-timers want to entertain, they recall full houses in the Oakland Coliseum when Jose Canseco traded forearm shots with Mark McGwire.

These Dodger days will be like that, and there’s no indication they’ll end anytime soon. But it’s always better to have a trophy, removing the need for explanation.