Zero for Nine

The Dodgers in their long history, have won 100 games or more nine times. In those seasons the have never won a World Championship. Nope, not once. The Most wins by a Dodger team that won it all? 98 in 1955 and 2024. Not that 100-win teams have not made the big dance, the 41 team lost the series to the Yankees. The 105-win 53 team also lost to New York.

Walter Alston's last pennant winning team in 1974 lost to the A's. That was the last 100-win team until Doc's 2017 team won 104 games and then lost the series to the Astro's. Of course, that loss is tainted by the cheating scandal in Houston. Since 2017, The Dodgers have won 100 or more five times and not made it out of the NL playoffs.

How can teams that good not win it all? Let's look at those teams a little closer. In 2019 they cruised to through the NL West winning 106 games, passing the team record for wins in a season. They were a run scoring machine with 886 runs scored and they hit 279 home runs, the most ever hit by any Dodger team. Bellinger had by far his best season in the majors .305/47/115 and his OPS was 1.035. He won the MVP award. Eleven players on that team hit homers in double digits.

The pitching staff was pretty decent with a 3.37 ERA. If there was a weakness, the bullpen was not exactly light's out. Jansen had 33 saves and his ERA was 3.71. Good, but not elite. Urias, who worked mostly out of the pen that year was second on the team in saves with 4. He pitched in 37 games, 8 of them as a starter.

The 2019 Nationals won 93 games and had to face the Brewers in a wild card game. They had a higher team BA than the Dodgers, .265-.257. Their team ERA was 4.27, and the staff had allowed 202 home runs. The Dodgers gave up 185. They had Strasburg, Scherzer, Corbin and Anabel Sanchez as their big 4. Strasburg led the league with 18 wins.

The teams were pretty evenly matched; it came down to games five. Strasburg against Buehler. Strasburg left after the 6th, down 3-1. Muncy and Kike had tagged him for homers. Buehler was pulled in the 7th with 2 out and he was charged with 1 run. Kershaw got the last out. This is where things got dicey. For some reason with RH hitting Anthony Rendon leading off the 8th, Doc sent Kersh back out to open the 8th. Two of the first three hitters for DC in the 8th were right-handed. Maeda was warming up in the bullpen. Rendon homered making it 3-2, and then Soto homered tying the game. Maeda replaced Kershaw and struck out the side.

Corbin, Hudson and Doolittle kept LA off of the board over the last 3 innings. Kelly pitched a scoreless 9th but got lit up in the 10th allowing a grand slam homer to former Dodger Howie Kendrick, with future Dodger Hudson getting the win. Two bad decisions by Roberts led to the loss, of course performance is always on the player, but Doc should have played the match-up card and had a righty start the 8th.

The 2021 team matched the 19 squads 106 wins but did not win the West. The Dodgers lost a key bat just before the playoffs. Max Muncy, the team's 1st basemen, who had slugged 36 homers, a career high, hyperextended his elbow on a play at 1st. He would miss the playoffs. Matt Beaty was his replacement along with Albert Pujols who had several key hits during the season. Scherzer and Turner had been picked up in July, one reason was that free agent signee, Trevor Bauer, had been placed on admin leave because of a sexual assault allegation. That would not be resolved until 2023. They finished one game back of the Giants, who under manager Gabe Kapler won 107 games. That forced LA to have to play the Cardinals in a wild card game. At the time, the wild card was 1 game instead of the best of 3 it is now. Wainwright pitched for the Cards, and the Dodgers started deadline pickup, Max Scherzer. Scherzer allowed an unearned run in the first when Edman scored on an error by Corey Seager. He would leave after 4.1 innings and 94 pitches. Wainwright pitched 5.1 innings allowing 4 hits, 2 walks and striking out 5. But one of the hits was Justin Turner's game tying homer in the 4th. The bullpens kept both teams off of the board through the top of the 9th. McFarland got 2 outs in the 9th. After allowing Bellinger to get on base, he was pulled for right hander Alex Reyes, who came in to face Chris Taylor. On Reyes 4th pitch, Taylor hit a shot deep into the left field pavilion for a walk off homer.

The Dodgers moved to the LDS to face longtime rival, the Giants. There would be two shutouts pitched, both by the Giants, one of them in freakish weather conditions at Dodger Stadium Games 2 and 4 were not close, LA winning by 7 in game 2 and the Giants by 5 in game 4. Game 5 was at Oracle Park in SF. The game 1 starter, Webb, started for the Giants and Roberts decided on using an opener before bringing in Urias in the 3rd. LA scored in the top of the 6th on a double by Seager driving in Betts. SF tied the game in the bottom of the 6th when Ruf homered off of Urias. It stayed that way until the top of the 9th inning. After JT was hit by a pitch, Lux singled. Bellinger then hit a single up the middle off of Doval and Turner scored the go-ahead run. Scherzer relieved and got the last 3 outs, striking out Flores on a checked swing for the win.

Injuries to the pitching staff finally caught up to the Dodgers in the LCS plus an out of his mind performance by Eddie Rosario of the Braves. They would lose in six games, but were kept alive in games 3 and five, a 3-run shot by Bellinger saved their bacon in game 3, and a 2-homer performance by AJ Pollock combined with Taylor's 3 homer, six RBI game, kept them alive to go back to Atlanta. Scherzer, suffering with tired arm syndrome pitched just 4.1 innings in game two.

After the season, closer Kenley Jansen left via free agency as did Corey Seager. Chris Taylor was resigned to a 4-year-deal for 60 million. Many Dodger fans thought this was way to generous. He signed Andrew Heaney, Daniel Hudson, and resigned Kershaw. On March 18th, AF signed LHSP Tyler Anderson and then landed his big fish, Freddie Freeman on a 6-year-contract. Anderson would turn out to be a very good signing. Freeman was slated to take over at first with Muncy moving to 3rd, Turner becoming the DH, Trea Turner taking over at SS for Seager, with Lux becoming the 2nd baseman. Hanser Alberto was signed as a utility player. An under the radar trade sent Beaty to the Padres for River Ryan.

The team would win 111 games, the most in franchise history. They had a potent offense, despite Bellinger, Muncy and Taylor all having down years. Muncy still recovering from his injury hit just .196 with 21 homers. Bellinger, who raised his BA 45 points, still hit just .210 with 19 homers. Taylor hit .212 in 118 games. Every regular but Lux hit double digit homers as did reserve outfielder, Trayce Thompson who hit 13 and batted .268. The pitching was solid with a combined 2.80 ERA. Urias 17, Gonsolin 16-1, Anderson 15 and Kershaw 12, who was rebounding from an injury plagued 21. Heaney who was also out for much of the year won 4, and Buehler won 6 before having season ending surgery. Kimbrel was 6-7 with 22 saves. The surprise in the pen was Evan Phillips, 7-3, 1.20 ERA with 2 saves in 64 games. Yet this team, by most accounts one of the best the Dodgers ever fielded, was knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by a team they went 14-5 against in the regular season and finished 22 games in front of in the West. What Happened?

Well, Padres pitching pretty much silenced the big bats. They hit 4 homers in the four games but 3 of them came in the game 2 loss. Padres hit 4 also. The difference was the performance of the bullpen in two of the losses. After Kershaw left the game with the score tied at 3, Graterol gave up the go ahead run in the sixth and a homer off of Treinen in the 8th made it 5-3. LA scored all 3 of their runs on homers off of Darvish. Gonsolin lost a 2-1 decision even though he allowed just 1 run in 1.1 innings. The eventual game winner was a homer by Grisham off of Heaney in the 4th. LA scored their only run in the 5th when Betts singled in Thompson who had singled off of Snell. LA got one hit the rest of the way off of the Padres pen. In the deciding game four, the Dodgers were up 3-0 heading into the bottom of the 7th. Anderson and Chris Martin had kept SD off the scoreboard on just 4 hits. Tommy Kahnle, whom LA would beat in game five of the 24 World Series came in to pitch in the 7th. He gave up a single, a walk and an infield single that scored the first run. Almonte relieved him. Kim then doubled in a run making it 3-2 and Soto singled in another tying the game. Almonte got the next 2 hitters out. With Cronenworth up, Soto stole second. Vesia replaced Almonte. Cronenworth singled to center plating Kim and Soto for the 5-3 final. LA went down with a whimper over the next two innings.

More changes to the roster in 23. Both Turner's left via free agency. Trea to the Phillies and Justin to the Red Sox. Cody Bellinger was non-tendered and signed with the Cubs. Besides resigning Kershaw, AF brought in Shelby Miller for the bullpen. He signed both Jason Heyward and David Peralta to help outfield depth. He signed Noah Syndergaard to help the rotation, which had lost Anderson to free agency and Buehler to surgery. He then signed JD Martinez to replace JT as the DH. On January 11th of 23, he made an under the radar trade to bring Miguel Rojas back to the team, after he had traded him to Miami in the Dee Gordon trade in 2015. Rojas was ticketed for a utility role. Because of a spring training injury to Lux, he would have a much bigger role. Bauer was reinstated by the league and LA immediately released him.

The offense was led by Betts and Freeman with strong contributions from Martinez, Muncy, who hit just .212 but slugged 36 homers and drove in 105. Martinez hit 33 bombs with 103 driven in. Betts led the team with 39 homers, 107 RBIs, he was in MVP contention all year and finished 2nd to Ronald Acuna. Freeman hit .331 with 29 homers, 102 driven in, a league leading 59 doubles, and 211 hits. ROY candidate, James Outman hit 23 homers and provided excellent defense in center. Heyward 15 homers .269 average, provided pop off of the bench and excellent defense in right. Taylor rebounded a little and also had 15 bombs. Syndergaard was traded after going just 1-4 for Amed Rosario. LA also traded 2 minor leaguers to Boston for Kike Hernandez, who hit .260 the rest of the season for LA contributing 5 homers.

No Dodger pitcher won more than Kershaw's 13. Rookie Bobby Miller was the big surprise posting an 11-4 record. Urias also won 11 but his season was cut short when he was placed on admin leave in September over a domestic violence charge, he would not pitch for LA again. Gonsolin 8-5 was the only other starter with at least 20 starts. LA traded for Lance Lynn at the deadline and he won 7 games but gave up 16 homers and 44 on the season, Joe Kelly was brought back in the same trade. Phillips became the closer and was 2-4 with 24 saves and a 2.04 ERA. Graterol was 2nd with a 4-2 record, 7 saves and a 1.20 ERA. Ferguson recorded a 7-2 record and 3 saves. The team won 100 games, winning the West over Az by 16 games over Arizona. Then Arizona swept them in the LDS in three games.

What happened? They had home field! Well in game one, Kershaw was very un-Kershaw like and gave up 6 runs in the first inning while recording just 1 out. Sheehan gave up 3 more in his 3.2 innings and Grove and Vesia each allowed 1 on homers. Arizona hit 4 bombs that day driving in 5 of their 11 runs. Also, the offense, which had been potent, never got going against a pitcher, Kelly, who was 0-2 against them during the season, and to this point in time, is 0-11 against LA in his career. Another first inning outburst, this time 3 runs off of Miller, was enough to secure a 4-2 win in game two. They scored a run in the 4th on a Marinez homer, and another in the 6th on Kike's PH single. A Gurriel homer in the top of the 6th made it 4-1. The Arizona pen shut them down over the last 3 innings on 1 hit and 2 walks. They went to Arizona down 2-0. In game three, another one inning outburst would beat them. Arizona teed off on Lynn in the bottom of the 3rd hitting 4 homers for a 4-0 lead. LA got 4 hits in the top of the 7th to score 2, one on a Taylor single and the second on a single by Kike, but the D-Backs pen closed the door the last 2 innings for the sweep.

The Dodgers starters were the culprit this series. In 22, it had been the pen, but when you give up 9 homers, 6 of them by the starters putting the team in huge holes, your offense is going to have to really be on its game, and Arizona's pitching made sure that did not happen. Out homered 9-1 outscored 19-6. Arizona would win the pennant and then lose the World Series to the Rangers. LA won the World Series the next 2 seasons both times with less than 100-win seasons. We all know what happened this year. Maybe someday, they will get that first 100-win Championship. Who knows?