LOS ANGELES — After losing for the second straight year in last year’s National League District Series, Director of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman, General Manager Brandon Gomez and other members of the Dodgers’ front office announced their offseason plans.
They knew that their withdrawal in early October would no longer be acceptable. To give themselves the best chance of not having that happen in 2024, the Dodgers wanted to be aggressive during the winter.
Their priority was signing two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani. Once the Dodgers accomplished that, the rest of the plan unfolded perfectly. In the end, the Dodgers spent more than $1 billion on the deal and acquired all of their top targets over the winter.
In doing so, the Dodgers established one of the best rosters in recent memory. The prediction for the 2024 season was simple. It was World Series or failure.
With a 10-5 victory over the Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium on Sunday, the Dodgers moved within four wins of reaching their ultimate goal and advancing to the World Series for the 22nd time in franchise history. .
“Every team goes to spring training and says, ‘My goal this year is to win the World Series,’ and we’re one of the few teams that has that as a realistic goal every year,” Dodgers third baseman said. Max Muncy said. “There’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of expectations, especially when you talk about the names we’ve added this year. We’ve dealt with a lot of injuries. We’ve dealt with some issues off the field. But at the end of the day, we were able to get through it.”
The Dodgers will now face the American League champion Yankees, and the battle between the two powerhouses begins on Friday at Dodger Stadium in the World Series. This will be the 12th time the two historic franchises will meet in the Fall Classic, and the first time since 1981.
“It looks like fun,” Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts said. “They’re obviously a good club, and obviously we are too. I think the world wanted to see this. It’s going to be fun. It’s good for baseball. It’s going to be fun.”
With a team full of superstars, the Dodgers relied on their relievers to send them to the World Series. Without a fourth starting pitcher, the Dodgers faced their bullpen for the third time this postseason. The first one was spectacular. The second one was not.
However, on the third attempt, the Dodgers bullpen did a good enough job using seven pitchers to get the job done. They fought through a lot of traffic, allowing five runs in nine innings, but consistently made big pitches when needed and stranded 13 Mets baserunners.
“It’s a little bit of a icing on the cake tonight,” Dodgers relief pitcher Evan Phillips said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but to come here in the series-clinching game and know we can play a bullpen game and be successful gives us even more confidence. We believe in each other and love to see each other succeed.”
Michael Kopec received the starting assignment and was tasked with opening the match. Although Kopech did not have the best command in the early stages, he was able to limit the damage in the first half to just one goal. He then turned the game over to rookie Ben Kasparius, who has pitched primarily in mop-up duty this postseason.
Manager Dave Roberts later said the original plan was not to go to Kasparius early in the game. But Kopech wasn’t that sharp, and the Dodgers needed some length, so they turned to the rookie. He made four key outs.
“We didn’t know who was going to follow Kopech,” Roberts said. “Given his first innings, I had to think differently. I had to think hard about how much I wanted it. I knew Kasparius would have to eat out. I didn’t know how much I was going to get out of him. But at that point, it’s like trying to manipulate the scoreboard and count the outs.”
Kasparius then passed to Anthony Banda, who got four outs himself. Ryan Brazier did something similar. These middle innings helped the Dodgers reach slow innings. At that time, Phillips, Daniel Hudson and Blake Treinen pitched the final four innings of the game.
“We saw them (in the Division Series) and they were unbelievable,” Friedman said. “Then, at the end of the series, (Alex) Bashear got injured. Going into this series, we didn’t have enough staff. But guys like Ben Kasparius came forward and did what he did. Well, that really sums up this whole year.”
This season hasn’t been what the Dodgers expected. They’re getting contributions from players they weren’t counting on before. No bigger example is that of NLCS MVP Tommy Edman, who didn’t make his team debut until mid-August after being acquired from the Cardinals at the trade deadline. He finished the NL CS with 11 RBIs, tying Dodgers’ Corey Seager (2020) for the most RBIs in a postseason round.
At one point, injuries were so common with the Dodgers that Roberts decided to hold a quick team meeting in Atlanta in late September just to remind himself how good the team was. No one would have blamed the Dodgers if they wanted to feel sorry for themselves after starters Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone suffered season-ending injuries.
Instead, here it is. It hasn’t turned out the way they envisioned, but this is what they expected. They defeated the Mets by 20 points in six games, putting them four wins away from winning the World Series.
“Look at what this team did in the offseason,” Edman said. “When you sign with Shohei, you have a lot of superstars. It’s like an expectation to be successful. It says a lot about the group we have here.”
