For the tenth time in 11 seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers have reached the postseason and fallen short of a World Series title. With a firmly established reputation for shying away in big moments, Los Angeles will spend another offseason deciphering exactly what is keeping the team from a championship.
Beyond a World Series title in 2020, a season shortened by the pandemic, the Dodgers have not made the most of their regular season triumphs in the past decade. Los Angeles has never failed to earn 90 wins in a full season and has earned ten division titles, but despite entering all of those postseasons as a World Series contender, the team has only advanced past the NLCS twice, in 2017 and 2018. Those teams lost to the Astros and Red Sox, respectively.
This year, the Dodgers won 101 games and were widely considered to be the second choice to win the title. They didn’t a single playoff game, going down to the sixth-seeded Arizona Diamondbacks in three straight games in the NLDS. Ace Clayton Kershaw, 35, gave up six runs in Game 1, setting the tone for a lopsided series in which the underdogs controlled every facet of the matchup.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts took responsibility for the team’s recent lack of playoff success. Roberts can only take so much blame for Los Angeles’ decade of disappointments. Since arriving in 2016, Roberts led the team to three World Series appearances but only managed to win the title during the pandemic.
“It doesn’t matter if it was a seven-game series, we lost the first three games,” Roberts said. “For me, I’ve got to do a better job of figuring out a way to get our guys prepared for the postseason. I’ll own that. I think we’ve got great players. I’ve got to figure out a way to get these guys prepared for whatever format, whatever series. Yeah, the regular season, I think we do a great job. But the last couple of postseasons, it just hasn’t gone well for us, and so I’ve got to figure it out.”
With Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman leading the team, the Dodgers will likely remain contenders for some time. But after losing at so many different points and failing to capitalize on profoundly talented rosters, frustration will only continue to mount for one of the league’s biggest underachievers.
