Dodgers Prove They Were Inevitable After All, Win the World Series

It has always been championship or bust when it comes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but when they signed Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Teoscar Hernandez and traded for Tyler Glasnow this offseason, there was more talk about them being a “Super Team” then ever before.

The difference between having a “Super Team” in baseball than in basketball is it takes a lot more than just a handful of superstars to get the job done. The journey is a marathon that starts in spring training in February and ends in October, with countless twists and turns along the way.

Throughout the season, the Dodgers endured many injuries, as star players like Mookie Betts, Glasnow and Yamamoto missed time, but when the dust settled they had secured their 11th NL West title in the last 12 years, having once again punched their ticket to October.

Still, early exits in the NLDS the last two postseasons, and an injury-riddled starting rotation had many casting doubts as to if the Dodgers were really the team best built to go the distance.

Set face off against their division rival the San Diego Padres in the NLDS, the thought of L.A. going home early again certainly seemed like it could be in the cards.

The Dodgers lost two of the first three games in that NLDS, facing elimination in Game 4 on the road in San Diego. Without a starting pitcher to turn to, the Dodgers went with a bullpen game, and walked away victorious to send the series back to Los Angeles.

After shutting out the Padres with their bullpen in Game 4, they did it again in Game 5, getting a great start by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and more brilliance from their bullpen. This would be the last time they would face elimination, as the Dodgers fully realized their “Super Team” identity, playing flawless baseball over the next two rounds.

Squaring off against a pair of New York teams who enjoyed their best seasons in years, the Dodgers showed that they truly were inevitable all along. Their rotation hit its stride, their bullpen was nails, and their lineup got clutch hit after clutch hit, while playing fundamentally sound in the field.

In their Game 5 World Series clincher on Wednesday night, the Yankees made countless mistakes and the Dodgers capitalized on every single one.

Across the NLCS and the World Series, the Dodgers proved once and for all what we have known about them for a long time. They are the model franchise in Major League Baseball. And now, they are officially world champions once again.

Validating the 2020 World Series Title

Despite all of their regular season success that has spanned over a decade, the Dodgers have not fared well in October. Since 1988, their lone World Series title came in 2020, which to no fault of their own was a season that was unprecedented in many ways.

Due to the COVID pandemic, the season was only 60 games, and the World Series was played at a neutral site with a crowd that was only filled at 25% occupancy.

When the Dodgers won it all, no championship parade was allowed and there was an asterisk put on the title for many who just did not want to give the Dodgers credit for what they accomplished.

If you look back, the road was actually tougher for the Dodgers as they had to win in the Wild Card round first before they even got into the NLDS. They still beat the Brewers, Padres, and Braves along the way, before finally taking down the Tampa Bay Rays in a World Series that was tightly contested and won in six games.

Still, many were quick to dismiss this as a “real championship” because the Dodgers had not won one in a full season since 1988. Well now, they get the chance to put another ring in the face of all their haters, as there is no poking holes in what they just accomplished.

From July 1st through the end of the season, no team in baseball had a better record than the San Diego Padres. The Padres had loaded up their bullpen at the deadline, had three formidable starting pitchers in Dylan Cease, Michael King and Yu Darvish, and had a star-studded lineup with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr, Luis Arraez, and likely Rookie of the Year Jackson Merrill.

Looking back on their playoff run now, beating this Padres team was probably their toughest test, and it took getting pushed to the brink of elimination to rise up and show just how good they really were.

Up next in the NLCS was the New York Mets, the team that had the best record in baseball from June 1st until the end of the season.

The Mets clinched a playoff berth in dramatic fashion a day after the regular season ended against the Atlanta Braves, eliminated the Brewers in the Wild Card round when they were down to their final outs thanks to a monster home run by Pete Alonso against Devin Williams, before beating the Phillies in four games in the NLDS.

If there was ever a group that had “team of destiny” vibes it was this year’s New York Mets, who’s season highlights included having their second baseman double as a top-selling Latin pop star and having adopted McDonald’s “Grimace” as a mascot after his first pitch turned into a winning streak that their fan base rallied around for months.

The Dodgers endured a few blowout losses at the hands of the Mets, but those were games where manager Dave Roberts chose to lose the battle for the sake of winning the war.

Once the Mets landed some crooked numbers with early barrages in Games 2 and 5, the Dodgers leaned on their lower-leverage arms to save bullets for the next day. This strategy worked beautifully, as they were able to lean on their bullpen to win Games 3, 4, and 6, outlasting the Mets to run away with the NL pennant in a series that never felt close despite going to six games.

Last up was the New York Yankees, a team that was also in championship or bust mode, with incumbent superstars Aaron Judge and Gerrit Cole having still not won a ring, and having brought in Juan Soto for one season before he hit free agency.

The Yankees have not won a World Series since 2009, and it certainly felt like this was their year when they rolled through the American League side, clinching their AL pennant in five games in the ALCS.

A World Series matchup for the ages, with baseball’s two premier franchises.

Game 1 was iconic, as a pitcher’s duel between Jack Flaherty and Gerrit Cole ended up going into extra innings, where the Yankees took a lead in the top of the 10th as they looked to grab a lead in the World Series.

That lead would never come, as the Dodgers loaded the bases for Freddie Freeman and the future Hall of Fame hit a home run that may go down as the defining swing of his career, blasting a walk-off grand slam in front of a raucous L.A. crowd.

The Dodgers rolled from there, taking Games 2 and 3 behind more heroics from Freeman, who homered in each game, and some great starts by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler.

In Game 4, the Dodgers had their chances to make it a sweep, but again, Dave Roberts was willing to lose the battle to win the war. In a bullpen game, the Dodgers skipper stayed away from all of his top relief arms, and the Yankees turned it into an 11-4 rout late.

This set the stage for Game 5, where the Dodgers looked to beat one of the best playoff performers of the past decade, Gerrit Cole on his own mound at Yankee Stadium.

Give the Dodgers an Inch They Take the Title

No team has ever come back from down three games to none to win the World Series, but the stage seemed to be set for the Yankees to give it a go. After winning Game 4, they had their ace on the mound to win Game 5 and send the series back to Los Angeles.

Things could not have gotten off to a better start for the Yankees, as Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first, and Jazz Chisolm went back-to-back to put the Yankees up 3-0 early. They tacked on runs in the second and third innings, moving to 5-0 at the end of three frames.

Dave Roberts had to go to his bullpen with just one out in the second inning, as Jack Flaherty did not have it all, very similar to when he lost Game 5 of the NLCS against the Mets.

This time, Roberts did not want to see the series go back to L.A. and he started emptying the tank with all his best relievers who he had saved the night before.

Still, it would take runs to get back in the game, and instead of slamming the door shut, the Yankees flung it wide open in the top of the 5th inning with some truly horrendous defense.

First, it was Judge who dropped a routine fly ball, then Anthony Volpe made a poor throw on a force out at third base, on what would have been a bang-bang play anyway. This all followed a leadoff single by Kike Hernandez, as the Dodgers loaded the bases with nobody out against Cole.

Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani each struck out, as Cole narrowly escaped the jam. Mookie Betts came up and hit a slow roller to Anthony Rizzo, but beat him to the bag when Cole failed to cover first base, extending the inning.

A base hit by World Series MVP Freddie Freeman, and a double by Teoscar Hernandez reset the ballgame, with the Dodgers scoring five unearned runs on Cole to tie things up at the game’s halfway point.

That tie score held until the bottom of the 6th inning, when the Yankees capitalized on a wild Brusdar Graterol, who walked three of the five batters he faced in the inning. The Yankees scored one on a Giancarlo Stanton sac fly, but Blake Treinen put out the fire by getting final out of the sixth to strand a runner in scoring position.

The Dodgers failed to score in the 7th, but Treinen kept the game close with a 1-2-3 frame in the bottom half. Then in the top of the 8th inning, the Dodgers broke through yet again.

After that brutal fifth inning, Gerrit Cole had stayed on to get five more outs, with Clay Holmes relieving him to get the final out of the 7th inning. In the 8th, the Yankees handed the ball to Tommy Kahnle, who was greeted by a pair of singles from Kike Hernandez and Tommy Edman.

Kahnle then walked Will Smith, loading the bases for Gavin Lux, with the top of the lineup looming. Yankees skipper Aaron Boone went to his closer Luke Weaver, who was put in the impossible position of trying to get out of a bases-loaded no outs situation.

Lux got the tying run in with a sac fly, then Shohei Ohtani loaded the bases when his first swing connected with Austin Wells glove for a catcher’s interference.

Mookie Betts came up to the plate with one goal in mind. Put the ball in play, and he succeeded in doing that, hitting another sac fly to give the Dodgers what proved to be the game-winning run.

Again, it came down to execution for the Dodgers, as they did all postseason long picking up those runners in scoring position whenever they needed to.

The final outs of a World Series are never easy to get though, and it took a Herculean effort by Treinen against the Yankees best hitters in the 8th inning to get the job done.

Treinen got Juan Soto to groundout to lead things off, but then gave up a double to Aaron Judge, before pitching around Jazz Chisolm on a five-pitch walk. Roberts visited his relief ace on the mound, who assured him that he had enough in the tank to get out of the jam.

One turbo sinker to Stanton resulted in a flyout to Betts, then Treinen made Anthony Rizzo look silly, striking him out on a nasty sweeper to strand both runners.

In a game where the Dodgers used eight pitches, Treinen led the team with 42 pitches and got seven massive outs. After the Dodgers failed to score in the ninth, they handed the ball to starter Walker Buehler to get the final three outs, pitching on just one days rest.

It was a storybook moment for Buehler, who struggled mightily throughout the regular season to rediscover himself in his first year pitching off of his second Tommy John surgery.

Buehler found himself when it mattered most, delivering a pair of gems in his road starts in Game 3 of the NLCS and the World Series. Now here he was with a chance to clinch the whole thing, and he delivered, getting a groundout off the bat of Anthony Volpe before striking out Wells and Alex Verdugo to clinch the Dodgers eighth World Series title in franchise history.

It was a remarkable finish, that showed the grit of this Dodgers team, who emphatically proved they were the best in baseball for the 2024 season. Considering the players that will return to this roster next year, it is pretty clear the Dodgers are just getting started.

For a team that is always championship or bust, the championships have been hard to come by in L.A. but those days may be over now. With their nucleus of Hall of Famers in tact with Betts, Ohtani and Freeman and All-Stars all over the place around them, this is a “Super Team” that has the legs to win multiple titles in the years to come.

Right now, they get to bask in the celebration of this one. With a championship parade coming to downtown L.A. that is five years in the making. When it was all said and done, the team we thought would win it all on Opening Day proved to be inevitable indeed.