LOS ANGELES — It’s often lip service when teams say that their goal is to win the World Series every year. Most teams are actually happy with a postseason appearance. But for the Dodgers, winning the World Series every year is not only their goal and their mantra. It’s also their only focus.
The Dodgers spend more than other teams. They develop players better than other teams. And over the past decade, they have become the best organization in the sport. When it comes to improving their roster, enough is never enough for the Dodgers.
With their payroll and star-studded roster, the Dodgers being World Series-or-bust is no big secret. But in order to win the World Series, you first have to get there.
For the fourth time in eight seasons, the Dodgers have accomplished at least that much. On Sunday, they secured a place in the Fall Classic against the Yankees, defeating the Mets 10-5 at home in Game 6 of the NLCS to reach the World Series for the first time since 2020.
“It feels like we finally arrived, I finally arrived,” Shohei Ohtani said after clinching his first World Series berth in his first season as a Dodger. “A lot of the games we played were really tough and hard to win. It was truly a team effort to get here.”
After being down two games to one against the Padres in the NLDS, the Dodgers made a significant change with their season on the line. They seemed to grasp that one name wasn’t going to save their season, but 26 names might.
From then on, the Dodgers were a team on a mission. They took out their rival Padres in five games and were on to their next test: the New York Mets and their magical season.
Taking down the red-hot Mets would require a similar resolve to what the Dodgers showed in defeating San Diego. The mindset of all 26 being essential came into play immediately, with star first baseman Freddie Freeman continuing to be hobbled by an ankle injury and the rotation seemingly in flux.
While it would’ve been easy for a team with this many injuries to make excuses, L.A. rolled with the punches and kept finding ways to win. And with a 3-2 NLCS lead coming home to Dodger Stadium on Sunday, Game 6 ended up being pretty apropos of this team’s journey — in both the regular season and the postseason.
“They proved to themselves how tough they are,” manager Dave Roberts said of his team’s resolve. “When you get in the position that we were in against a division rival, it turns into a street fight. It’s lose and go home, or you fight like heck. I think that’s what got us over the top in the DS and also what allowed us to finish [the Mets] off in six games.”
In what is becoming a signature move for the Dodgers this postseason, they used a bullpen game to reach the World Series. One by one, seven relievers toed the rubber, limiting damage and trusting the Dodgers’ lineup to produce, which it did. Eight of the Dodgers’ nine starters recorded a hit and/or a run scored in the Game 6 victory.
“They’re deep. They’re good,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said postgame. “They’ve faced a lot of adversity. They’re missing a lot of key pieces. And they’re still a really good team — that’s why they’re advancing. You gotta be able to weather the storm, and they did that. When you look at the team and the whole organization, they’ve been doing it for a long time, year after year. And that should be our goal.”
When you spend on the biggest superstars in the game like the Dodgers have, acquiring the likes of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman, it not only improves a team exponentially but also increases the margin for error. But what makes these Dodgers unique within baseball is their ability to consistently win on the margins in addition to spending where other teams can’t and won’t.
Look no further than the man who won NLCS MVP, Tommy Edman.
When the Dodgers traded for Edman in a three-way, trade-deadline deal with the Cardinals and White Sox that also brought them Michael Kopech, the former Cardinal hadn’t played a game this year and was still rehabbing from offseason ankle surgery.
Fast-forward to the postseason, and Edman showed exactly why L.A. acquired him. When he took over for the injured Miguel Rojas in Game 3 of the NLDS, no one knew how big a role he’d play over the next 10 days. But in addition to starting at shortstop in every game, the versatile Edman crushed Mets pitching in the NLCS, slashing .407/.393/.630 with a homer and 11 RBI, tying him with Corey Seager for the franchise record in a postseason series. While filling in as the team’s cleanup hitter, Edman hit a two-run double and a two-run homer in the pennant-clinching game.
“We had really good at-bats throughout the series. Our whole lineup was good,” Edman said of L.A.’s NLCS performance. “We had any number of guys that could have won MVP. I just kept getting up with guys on base and had a lot of opportunities to drive guys in.”
Ohtani disagreed. “Tommy, I think, clearly is the MVP,” he said. “He does things — not just this postseason but during the regular season — contributing in places where it doesn't really reflect on the stat line.
“But I think the common theme for this season has been a lot of people, different guys have been stepping up over the course of the season.”
Now the Dodgers will face the New York Yankees in the World Series, with Game 1 on Friday at Chavez Ravine. It will be the first time the two historic franchises have met in the Fall Classic since 1981 and their 12th meeting all time. It’s also a rare clash of the No. 1 seeds from each league, as the two teams with the best records in their respective leagues face off.
The Yankees seem like a proper “final boss” for L.A., as they can match the Dodgers’ star power as well as any team in baseball. But as L.A. learned in their first two postseason series, winning the World Series will not be accomplished with one Herculean effort by one player.
Rather, their depth will be needed now more than ever, especially with the continued unknown that is Freeman’s ankle and a patchwork rotation that will be facing its toughest challenge yet against a Yankees rotation that can go four deep.
“This year, man, whether it was free agency or trade or waiver claim, whatever it was, it just seemed like we kept adding on the right piece,” Kiké Hernández said. “Right piece after right piece after right piece to get a ballclub that's not just a complete ballclub but has the character and the — sorry, mom, sorry again — but to have the give-a-f*** that it takes to endure a 162-game season.”
Through everything they’ve faced so far, the Dodgers have taken every punch and still ended up exactly where they wanted to be. We’ll soon find out if they can do that one more time in the next round.