Presently final yr, the strain was palpable.
Up till final October, the Dodgers had a repute as postseason failures.
It wasn’t an unwarranted distinction. In every of the earlier two seasons, the group had been upset within the Nationwide League Division Collection by lesser opponents within the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. The autumn earlier than that, their title protection flamed out in opposition to the underdog Atlanta Braves within the NL Championship Collection. Sure, they received a World Collection within the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. However outdoors of that, it’d been greater than three a long time since they final triumphed beneath typical circumstances.
That checkered historical past weighed on them. Their urgency to alter it in final yr’s playoffs was fervent.
“That kind of sour taste that you have when you make an early exit from the postseason, our guys are tired of it,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned on the eve of final yr’s postseason. “So this is another opportunity. I do sense that edge.”
This week, in fact, the Dodgers face a distinct sort of dynamic.
After their memorable run to a championship final yr, the group has gotten the monkey of its full-season title drought off its again. And whereas expectations are nonetheless excessive, with the Dodgers and their record-setting $400-million roster set to start the playoffs with a best-of-three wild-card spherical beginning Tuesday in opposition to the Cincinnati Reds, the questions on previous October disappointments have dissipated.
So, does the strain of this postseason really feel completely different?
“You would think,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy mentioned. “But the pressure’s always going to be there. Especially when you’re this team, when you’re the Los Angeles Dodgers, there’s a lot of expectations around you. There’s a lot of pressure.”
Certainly, after an underwhelming common season that noticed the Dodgers win the NL West for the twelfth time within the final 13 years, however fail to safe a first-round bye as one of many NL’s prime two playoff seeds, the Dodgers have a brand new job earlier than them.
Erase the frustrations of their 93-win marketing campaign. Preserve the momentum they constructed with a 15-5 regular-season end. And recreate the desperation that carried them to the promised land final fall, as they attempt to grow to be MLB’s first repeat champion in 25 years.
“For us, the challenge is not letting that pressure get to you and finding our rhythm, finding what’s going to work for us this year,” Muncy mentioned. “Each year the team has to find their identity when they get to this point. You have an identity during the regular season, and you have to find a whole ‘nother identity in the postseason.”
The Dodgers’ most popular id for this yr’s group figures to be the alternative of what labored final October.
In contrast to final yr, the group has a wholesome and star-studded beginning rotation getting into the playoffs. Additionally in contrast to final yr, the bullpen is a serious query mark regardless of an encouraging finish to the common season.
For the wild-card collection, it means the group will want large innings out of Recreation 1 starter Blake Snell, Recreation 2 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and (if crucial) Recreation 3 starter Shohei Ohtani — who’s being saved for the potential winner-take-all contest partly to assist handle his two-way workload.
Ideally, their manufacturing ought to ease the burden on a reduction corps that ranked twenty first within the majors in ERA through the common season, and has no clear-cut hierarchy for its most trusted arms.
“The starting pitching is considerably better” than it was final yr, Roberts mentioned Monday. “That’s probably the biggest difference between last year’s team.”
Granted, the Dodgers do really feel higher about their bullpen proper now, due to the return of Roki Sasaki, the reallocation (no less than for this collection) of Emmet Sheehan and Tyler Glasnow from the rotation to reduction roles, and up to date enhancements from Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott.
“[We have] much more confidence than we had a couple weeks ago,” Roberts mentioned of the bullpen. “I think that it’s because those guys have shown the confidence in themselves, where they’re throwing the baseball. I think last week we saw guys more on the attack setting the tone, versus pitching behind or pitching too careful.”
Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott delivers in opposition to the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 19.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)
Nonetheless, it’s anybody’s guess as to who will pitch within the ninth inning, or be referred to as upon within the highest-leverage moments.
Shut, late contests can be greatest for the Dodgers to keep away from.
To that finish, the continuation of the Dodgers’ latest uptick on the plate would additionally assist. Throughout a dismal 22-32 stretch from July 4 to Sept. 6, the Dodgers ranked twenty seventh in scoring, struggling to beat accidents to a number of key items, slumps from a few of their greatest stars, and a normal lack of constant execution in situational alternatives. Over their closing 20 video games, nevertheless, the lineup averaged an NL-best 5.55 runs per sport behind late-season surges from Ohtani and Mookie Betts, plus team-wide enhancements whereas hitting with runners in scoring place.
“The team is starting to fire on all cylinders, finally,” Muncy mentioned. “It’s something that we haven’t really felt all year.”
The massive query stays catcher Will Smith, who has been out since Sept. 9 with a proper hand fracture.
Roberts mentioned Monday the group has been “encouraged” with Smith’s latest progress. The slugger was even in a position to take reside at-bats Monday evening.
“If he can get through today and feel good,” Roberts mentioned, “then it’s a viable thought” that he might be on the ultimate 26-man roster the Dodgers must submit forward of Tuesday’s sport for the wild-card collection.
Both method, the Dodgers’ greatest concern stays on sustaining their latest stage of play. Erasing previous October failures may now not be a motivation. However, like Muncy, Roberts mentioned the urgency to win one other World Collection stays the identical.
“I don’t know if it’s easier or harder that we won last year,” Roberts mentioned. “But, honestly, all we care about is winning this year.”
