Dodgers’ tedious journey for a 6th straight NL West title
LA’s arduous path to a 6th straight NL West title
The Dodgers won the National League West for a sixth straight season, just like they were predicted to. But this year’s run to October didn’t exactly happen as intended, needing to win a tiebreaker game on Monday to finish things off. Overwhelming favorites to win their division for a sixth straight time, the Dodgers scuffled through the majority of their season before a late surge powered them back to the postseason.
They didn’t plan it this way, but the Dodgers’ mettle has been tested for the first time in September in six years.
“Right now we’re talking about a postseason of potentially a month [in October],” manager Dave Roberts said during the last homestand of the season. “For us it’s two months, and that’s a byproduct of the five months of baseball we played before September.”
Overcoming obstacles isn’t exactly new to the Dodgers in their six-year run of divisional crowns, a feat surpassed only by the 11 straight NL East titles won by the Atlanta Braves (1995-2005) and by the nine straight AL East championships captured by the New York Yankees (1998-2006). The Dodgers have trailed by at least eight games at some point in five of the last six years, including a nine-game deficit in 2018.
But the Dodgers haven’t seen September adversity like this season in any of their six straight divisional titles. Even in 2017 when the Dodgers lost 16 of 17 games, including an 11-game September losing streak, their divisional lead never shrank below 8½ games thanks to an incredible 91-36 start to the year.
In 2018 the Dodgers began the month of September in third place and spent 16 days during the month outside of first place, including three days in the final week of the season thanks to an eight-game winning streak by the Rockies.
It’s the first time the Dodgers have been out of first place in September since 2012.
“It was harder, especially compared to last year,” Clayton Kershaw said. “Maybe that will build upon something, having meaningful games all the way through September. Maybe that will help us down the road.”
The Dodgers climbed back to the top of the heap thanks to 25 wins in their last 35 games, including four straight series wins against teams ahead of them in either the NL West or NL Wild Card standings. In those contender matchups the Dodgers got game-winning home runs in the seventh inning or later from four different players — Justin Turner, Matt Kemp, Chris Taylor and Yasiel Puig.
“You have a feeling that someone is going to come up with the big hit,” Turner said. “You just don’t know who it’s going to be.”
Puig was the hero on Sept. 19, with a tiebreaking three-run shot in the seventh inning to complete a sweep of Colorado. It was Puig’s sixth home run in an 18-plate appearance stretch. After an unproductive April followed by a trip to the disabled list, Puig slugged .562 with 23 home runs.
Don’t let the two different power outages at Dodger Stadium in 2018 fool you. Home runs have been the main driver of the Dodgers offense, 235 of them in all to set a new franchise record, set just last year (221). The Dodgers lead the NL in home runs, and trail only the record-setting Yankees (267) in all of baseball. LA tied a major league record with seven different players with 20 home runs, the first National League team to do so.
The surprise
For the second straight campaign the Dodgers’ home run leader started the season in the minors. Last year it was Cody Bellinger, whose hype was expected as a top-10 prospect in all of baseball. Maybe nobody predicted his NL-record 39 home runs from a rookie, but his expectations were still quite high.
But in 2018 nobody saw what Max Muncy had coming. Muncy signed a minor league deal with the Dodgers in 2017 and had a decent year, hitting .309/.414/.491 with 12 home runs in 109 games in Triple-A. He played parts of two seasons in the majors with the Oakland Athletics in 2016-17, but hit just .195/.290/.321 in 245 plate appearances. Muncy impressed as a non-roster invitee during spring training, but still opened the year in Oklahoma City as expected.
Now a 27-year-old journeyman, Muncy moved around the diamond to try and increase his defensive versatility, seeing time mostly in the corners in the infield and sometimes the outfield. But as he described in spring training, “The position I like most is hitting.”
Muncy got his chance to return to the majors in mid-April, and stuck thanks to a combination of patience and power. He is hitting .263/.391/.582 leads the Dodgers in walks and home runs, with his 35 a total reached by only 10 others in Dodgers franchise history.
He will fall 24 plate appearances shy of qualifying for the leaderboard, but among major leaguers with at least 400 PA, Muncy ranks fifth in wRC+ (162) and is tops in isolated power (.319), ahead of such luminaries as Mike Trout, and major league home run leader Khris Davis.
Now that the Dodgers are in the playoffs, their chances look as strong as anyone else in the National League. They lead the NL in run differential (+194), and their offense is tops in runs scored (804), home runs, slugging percentage (.442), walks (647), OPS (.775), OPS+ (111) and wRC+ (111). Dodgers pitchers lead the NL in fewest runs allowed (610), FIP (3.58) plus have the fewest walks (422) and most strikeouts (1,565).
“I think we’re the best team, and I’ve said it,” Roberts said. “Most importantly we’ve got to go out there and play like it.”
Th Dodgers are the first MLB team to lead its league in both runs scored and fewest runs allowed since the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals. Only six teams have pulled this off in the last 40 seasons, and the other five all won at least 100 games. The Dodgers this year have 92 wins, and needed a 163rd game to decide the NL West.
In a division the Dodgers were given between a 66% and 85% chance to win before the season, what took so long?
Injuries
Seven different Dodgers starting pitchers — who have accounted for all but seven of their starts in 2018 — were on the disabled list at least once this season, including four members of the opening day rotation in May alone.
May saw the Dodgers reach their nadir, 10 games under .500 at 16-26 while missing several key players.
At that point they were without All-Star shortstop Corey Seager, whose season ended in April with a torn UCL that required Tommy John surgery. Turner, the Dodgers’ best hitter, was just activated off the disabled list from a fracture in his left wrist from a hit by pitch in the final week of spring training.
The Dodgers since Turner started his season are 76-48, the best record in the National League.
Bullpen woes
Even with that surge the Dodgers still found themselves in a dogfight, both in the division and in the NL Wild Card races. As late as August 23 the Dodgers found themselves 4½ games out in the NL West, after getting swept at home by the Cardinals in what seemed like a new low point of a trying year.
Kenley Jansen had a recurrence of an irregular heartbeat when the Dodgers were at Coors Field, the third time in his career he has suffered this while in Denver, and something he will correct with offseason surgery. While he was unavailable the Dodgers went through an agonizing stretch that saw seven different relievers allow a tying or go-ahead run in the seventh inning or later over seven days.
When Jansen returned he allowed decisive home runs in his first two games back, exacerbating the bullpen’s problems.
“You can’t control life. Everything was going so well,” Jansen said. “The reality hits your mind and starts to slow you down. You just have to get back to it.”
For the most part, Jansen has rebounded, though his 13 home runs allowed are more than double his previous career high. After allowing runs in four straight appearances for the first time in his career, Jansen has delivered scoreless outings in 11 of his last 14 games. The bullpen has followed suit, posting a 2.34 ERA with 129 strikeouts in 126⅔ innings since that sweep by the Cardinals.
The Dodgers playoff bullpen will be augmented by several starting pitchers in it, likely including Ross Stripling, who was an All-Star starter this year; Alex Wood, an All-Star starter last year; and Kenta Maeda, who emerged as a force in the 2017 postseason, especially against right-handers. That trio posted a 3.63 ERA in a combined 68 starts this season, a better starters ERA than six of the 10 playoff teams. The Dodgers are deep enough to not consider starting any of them in October.
The transition to relief hasn’t been as smooth this season for Maeda, who started 20 games. But he does have 26 strikeouts against only three walks in relief to go with his 3.50 ERA, and was dominant against the heart of the Rockies’ order in two appearances last week, striking out five while allowing only a soft single.
“We’re betting on him,” Roberts said. “We need those huge outs from Kenta.”
Runs at a premium
For a team that leads the NL in several offensive categories, they have still had issues along the way. They rank dead last in the majors in FanGraphs’ Clutch statistic, which measures performances in high-leverage situations. The Dodgers are even worse in this regard than the terrible Baltimore Orioles, who lost 115 games.
With runners in scoring position the Dodgers are in the middle of the pack in overall production, and their batting average ranks 12th in MLB. With runners in scoring position and two outs the Dodgers are hitting .199; the entire league is hitting just .233 in those situations, but LA is at the very bottom.
The Dodgers have been held to three or fewer runs in nearly half of their games (32 of 66) since the All-Star break. Those factors go a long way in explaining why their actual record is 10 games worse than what is normally expected from a team with their run differential.
Hitting left-handed pitching was an issue too, with the Dodgers hitting just .225/.309/.382 against southpaws through July 31. But the Dodgers acquired a trio of right-handed bats — Manny Machado during the All-Star break, then Brian Dozier and David Freese before the non-waiver trade deadline.
The addition of those three, plus the return to form of some of the hitters already around helped the Dodgers to hit .267/.349/.460 against left-handers since August 1, and are 18-8 against southpaw starters since then.
“We love depth. Depth is a key word around here. You see it, we run out basically a completely different lineup than the night before, against a lefty,” Kershaw said. “It just goes to show the caliber of players we have in our clubhouse, the unselfishness of guys to take lesser roles, to be in different situations. Come playoff time, that will be huge.”
With all that depth, Roberts uses his bench more than anyone else in baseball. The Dodgers have 355 plate appearances from their pinch hitters in 2018, 58 more than any other team.
“Whether you start the game, you’re probably going to get in there at some point to help us win a baseball game,” Roberts said. “It is nice when you have a lot of good players, you can always have the best matchup.”
Versatility
Starting position players for the Dodgers have completed just 69.8% of their games, the fewest in baseball. There is bound to be at least one double switch, and with all the subbing it helps that several players can play multiple positions.
- Kiké Hernandez has started at seven different positions this season, and even pitched once.
- Bellinger splits his time between first base and center field, the fourth player in the in baseball history to play at least 60 games at each position in the same season.
- Chris Taylor was a career infielder before transitioning in 2017, becoming the starting center fielder on a World Series team. This year he began in the outfield, then filled in at shortstop after Seager went down, and switched back to the outfield after Manny Machado was acquired.
- Muncy has started at first base, second base and third base. Machado has starts at third base and shortstop.
- Joc Pederson, Alex Verdugo and Hernandez have started games in all three outfield positions.
- Backup catcher Austin Barnes has played 19 games at second base, starting six times.
“Our depth is our biggest strength,” said Taylor, who hit a walk-off home run to beat the Rockies on Sept. 18. “We feel fresher in games, with all the guys and all the versatility we have.”
The dynamic duo
Kershaw’s DL stint in May was for left biceps tendonitis, but his three-week trip to the DL in June was for a lower back strain, the third consecutive season the Dodgers ace has been sidelined by a back injury. That has limited Kershaw to just 26 starts this year, and his 2.73 ERA is his worst since 2012.
Welcome to the world of oversized expectations.
Kershaw’s fastball averages just 91.39 mph these days, roughly two ticks down from last year. He allowed five runs in five innings to a terrible Giants lineup on the penultimate day of the season, though since returning to the rotation in June he has a 2.72 ERA in 18 starts, thanks to a string of 15 straight quality starts despite his diminished stuff.
“It’s the competitiveness, it’s his desire to continue to be great. He’s said it best — the hitters tell you. When you see guys getting ahead on the fastball, it’s telling you you have to attack them a little differently,” Roberts said. “As stubborn as he can be — self admitted — in the game you have to evolve to continue to be great, and he’s done that.
“He’s very intelligent, and he has the ability to execute multiple pitches at any time in any count. That’s the separator.”
Kershaw’s partner in crime in the rotation is a brash 24-year rookie, with Walker Buehler more than living up to his billing after the Dodgers drafted the right-hander in the first round in 2015.
Buehler has a 2.62 ERA with 151 strikeouts in 137⅓ innings, including a career-best 12 punch outs to help finish off the Rockies on Sept. 19. He had a 1.55 ERA in his last 12 starts, including 6⅔ scoreless frames in the tiebreaker game on Monday.
“He’s exceeded [expectations] in my eyes but probably not in his own, which is a good thing,” Roberts said. “I expect him to help us win a championship.”
Outside of the Cleveland Indians (1948) and Milwaukee Brewers (never), the Dodgers have the longest championship drought among playoff teams, having last won in 1988. After losing Game 7 of the World Series last year, the Dodgers’ expectations this October are even higher. The road to the playoffs was much bumpier than in previous years but ultimately the Dodgers are in, and that’s a start.
“The key is to get into the postseason and play it out. We’re still in a good spot for that. We’re playing playoff baseball, and that’s our focus,” Roberts said. “To play desperation mode, I’m okay with that.”