The scene was acquainted, because the Dodgers poured out of their dugout Thursday evening in celebration of a Nationwide League West title, one they clinched with a 7-2 defeat of the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium.
Nonetheless, this accomplishment — the franchise’s twenty second division championship, and eleventh within the final 12 years — felt a bit completely different.
And, in comparison with the final couple years, got here a lot tougher earned.
This season, in any case, wasn’t like most within the membership’s decade-long run of regular-season dominance, after they’ve usually locked up the division effectively earlier than the end line, coasting down the stretch with double-digit recreation leads.
It wasn’t like 2018, both, when the Dodgers dug themselves out of an early-season gap and surged to the title in Sport 163; the final time they’d clinched the division at Chavez Ravine.
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Claiming this 12 months’s crown adopted a distinct sort of script — one shrouded in unprecedented expectations following their billion-dollar offseason, repeatedly derailed by accidents to their patchwork beginning rotation and at last secured with a string of season-defining moments that littered the stretch run.
“Like I’ve been saying,” veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas stated, “that is gonna put together us for what’s coming subsequent.”
Their collection win over the Padres this week epitomized all of it.
After shedding Tuesday’s opener on a beautiful, game-ending triple-play, trimming the division lead over second-place San Diego to simply two video games with 5 to go, the Dodgers responded with two come-from-behind wins, following up Wednesday’s 4-3 nail-biter with a flurry of late scoring Thursday.
Trailing 2-0 getting into the seventh inning, the Dodgers surged to life for his or her NL-leading forty first comeback of the season, scoring 5 instances within the seventh and twice once more within the eighth.
Will Smith began the rally, smacking a game-tying two-run homer to straightaway heart that he celebrated with a two-handed bat flip.
Shohei Ohtani put the Dodgers in entrance three batters later, sneaking a go-ahead RBI single by way of the best facet of the infield to proceed his torrid late-season tempo.
Mookie Betts added an exclamation level, slapping a two-run single the opposite solution to open a three-run lead that grew much more within the eighth on a two-run homer from rookie Andy Pages.
“Immediately type of epitomized our season,” stated supervisor Dave Roberts, who has been on the helm for the Dodgers’ final eight NL West championships. “Simply sort of battling from behind, preventing, scratching, clawing and keen ourselves to victory.”
Fittingly, it additionally got here with a second of adversity, when Freddie Freeman exited the sport with what initially seemed like a regarding proper ankle damage.
After Betts made the rating 5-2 within the seventh, Freeman badly rolled his ankle attempting to keep away from a tag on a play at first base. He left the sphere beneath his personal energy, however walked gingerly to the clubhouse as a hush fell upon a sellout crowd. Throughout the Dodgers’ clubhouse celebration, he was sporting a strolling boot with leaning on crutches.
Fortunately for the Dodgers, Freeman advised reporters it was solely a sprained (and considerably swollen) ankle, leaving him optimistic he’ll be prepared for the Nationwide League Division Sequence opener on Oct. 5.
“It harm for some time [but] I’m OK proper now,” Freeman stated with a relieved smile on the sphere afterward. “We’ve already carried out a number of therapy on it. I’m attempting to get the swelling off of it. I’m not going to journey this weekend [to the team’s series in Colorado]. I’m going to remain again to deal with this factor and hopefully be able to go by Saturday.”
It wasn’t the primary impediment the Dodgers have confronted of late, not after shedding each member of their opening day beginning rotation to accidents (solely Yoshinobu Yamamoto has returned in time to pitch within the postseason) and watching a as soon as nine-game division lead dwindle to the red-hot Padres.
“It could’ve been simple for us to make excuses,” Roberts stated. “You lose three, 4, 5, six, seven starters — write the season off. However not one individual on this clubhouse did that.”
Certainly, the Dodgers as an alternative displayed a degree of character and resiliency that has eluded them the previous two postseasons.
For the primary time since their unsuccessful chase of the San Francisco Giants in 2021, the crew has performed significant recreation after significant recreation within the closing stretch of this season’s march.
And repeatedly, they managed to ship, discovering simply the best mixture of star-studded offense, dependable aid pitching and patchwork rotation manufacturing to cement themselves atop the standings.
“All of them really feel candy, however I will let you know man, with what we have gone by way of this 12 months, this feels a tick sweeter,” Roberts stated. “I am simply so happy with these guys, the best way that we have fought the adversity, caught collectively and located a solution to win this division once more.”
“It was hard-fought,” Roberts added. “We earned it.”
There was the collection win in Arizona a month in the past, when the Dodgers suffered an damage to Clayton Kershaw (whose standing for the postseason stays unsure) after only one inning, but managed to overpower the then-second-place Diamondbacks to win three of 4 video games.
There was the current journey to Atlanta and Miami, the place the Dodgers twice dropped opening video games of collection earlier than managing to rally for a four-game break up with the Braves (highlighted by a comeback win keyed by a seven-run ninth-inning on Sept. 15) and a rubber-match defeat of the Marlins (during which Shohei Ohtani reached the 50-50 threshold in historic vogue).
There was final Sunday’s walk-off in opposition to the last-place Colorado Rockies, when Ohtani and Betts created the sort of late-game magic the crew will in all probability have to faucet into come subsequent month.
After which all of it culminated on Thursday evening in opposition to the Padres, in a victory keyed by a five-inning, one-run begin from Walker Buehler to maintain the lineup inside hanging distance.
“I feel it is a nice instance that this crew is prepared,” stated Rojas, who missed the sport with an adductor damage however helped lead the clubhouse champagne celebration. “With the items that we acquired, the group put ourselves in the perfect place to really have success in October. So all I’ve to say is, we’re able to method this postseason a bit bit higher than earlier than.”
Loads of questions will observe the Dodgers into October — the place they have been assured of a first-round bye (and have the within observe to clinching home-field benefit all through the playoffs) however little else.
Learn extra: What was (and wasn’t) mentioned in Dodgers’ pitching assembly with Shohei Ohtani
The beginning rotation stays a severe concern. Jack Flaherty completed his common season with two underwhelming begins. Yamamoto has but to pitch previous the fourth inning since coming off the injured listing earlier this month. Buehler completed his 12 months with 5.38 ERA, regardless of the enhancements he flashed Thursday evening. Landon Knack, the opposite seemingly member of an October rotation, is a rookie with simply 14 profession big-league outings.
The lineup has query marks of its personal, from the current accidents to Freeman and Rojas, to late-season scuffles from Betts and Smith, to a forged of bottom-half hitters who, on a night-to-night foundation, have been routinely hit and miss.
To make a deep postseason run, many issues will in all probability must go proper: Ohtani sustaining his torrid late-season tempo; the bullpen compensating for an anticipated lack of manufacturing from the beginning rotation; clutch high-leverage hitting that the Dodgers have struggled to provide in current postseasons; and positively no additional accidents to a shorthanded pitching workers.
However on the very least, the Dodgers have primed themselves for a positive path, avoiding a best-of-three wild-card spherical that may have additional burdened their pitching.
They’re NL West champs once more; an honor that appeared to hold a bit extra that means this season.
“Lots of people, they don’t present a number of feelings, and I do know individuals assume we’re not fighters,” Rojas stated, amid a comparatively gentle clubhouse celebration that belied the problem of the journey they took to get there.
“But it surely’s not like that,” Rojas declared. “On this clubhouse, all people is aware of that the center is there for the crew. I feel this 12 months we’ve obtained a number of issues to show. And we’re gonna go to the postseason fascinated with it that manner.”
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This story initially appeared in Los Angeles Instances.
