1955 Is Coming

It wasn’t to be this year for the Dodgers.  Like last year, their season ended with a 5-1 loss at Dodger Stadium in the World Series.  But it was a very different season.  Last year, the Dodgers were a great team.  Unfortunately, the Astros were also.  It could have gone either way (total runs were 34-34 in the World Series), but the Astros came out on top in a best of seven series.  If they had played 25 games, the Dodgers might have won 13.  This year, the Red Sox were a great team and the Dodgers weren’t.  If they played 25 games, I doubt the Dodgers would have won 13.  Knowing that the Dodgers just weren’t as good as the Red Sox makes it a little bit easier to take.  But on the other hand, it’s disappointing that they moved in the wrong direction this year.

I thought the Dodgers had a chance (and they did).  They weren’t as good as they were last year, but they had a knack for winning when they had to.  It looked like the playoffs were slipping away in late August.  The Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Cardinals all stood in the Dodgers’ way.  At one point in late August, they were four and a half games out.  They lost the first game of a four game series against the Diamondbacks on August 30.  Then they won each of the next three games by a score of 3-2.  They won five out of six against the Rockies in September.  They won three out of four in St. Louis against the Cardinals in September.  In mid-late September the Dodgers were looking good.  The Diamondbacks had been eliminated and the Dodgers had just swept the Rockies.  But the Dodgers lost two out of three in Arizona (meaningless games for the Diamondbacks) and suddenly it looked like the Rockies were in control.  The Dodgers swept the Giants in San Francisco on the last three days of the season to force a tiebreaker with the Rockies for the NL West Championship.  And the Dodgers won that game.  In the NLCS, the Dodgers fell behind 1-0 and 2-1.  They came back and won Game 7 in Milwaukee.  Then they lost the first two games of the World Series.  Once again, they needed to win and they won an all time classic World Series game on Max Muncy’s home run in the bottom of the 18th in Game 3.  They went up 4-0 in Game 4 and it looked like they were going to win another game they needed to win.  And then it all fell apart.

Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo had a good rant about Game 4.  I’m reminded of another famous Mad Dog rant:

He got three.  I’m still looking for one.

I don’t feel like diving into the poor performances.  Their bullpen was great against the Brewers, but terrible against the Red Sox (except for Game 3).  Dave Roberts didn’t manage a good series.  Clayton Kershaw didn’t pitch well.  They got two great starts from their starters and only managed to win one of those games.  They couldn’t hit (16 runs in 54 innings).

I’m interested to see what changes next year brings.  Hopefully Corey Seager is back and healthy.  They should definitely pick up David Freese’s option.  I absolutely want to see Clayton Kershaw back (Jon Weisman explains it better than I can).  I have no interest in seeing Manny Machado or Yasmani Grandal wearing Dodger uniforms again.  We’ll see what free agents they go after.

It’s tough because baseball is so different from basketball (another sport where they play best of seven in the playoffs).  I grew up watching Michael Jordan and you knew what you were getting.  Jordan was going to dominate every game and the Bulls were going to win every year.  In baseball, the best players have games where they do nothing.  Each game is totally different from each other because the starting pitcher changes every day.  The Red Sox were the best team, but would you have been shocked if they lost to the Yankees or Astros in the playoffs?  I wouldn’t have been shocked if the Dodgers had lost to the Braves in the first round.  Weird things can happen in the playoffs and teams that you didn’t expect to do anything in the playoffs can win it all.  Hopefully the 2019 Dodgers are more like the 2017 Dodgers than the 2018 Dodgers, but even if they are, that doesn’t guarantee anything.

Kind of going along with how you don’t know what’s going to happen, playoff baseball is usually so stressful to watch.  Basketball isn’t like that when you have a good enough team.   One of the hosts of my favorite Dodger podcasts usually doesn’t watch their playoff games live because he can’t take it.  I could never not watch, but the games can be tough to take.  The regular season isn’t as stressful, but you have games almost every day.  I’m glad that I can relax and not have to worry about baseball and schedule my sleep around it anymore (I’ll be scheduling which mass I go to around football for the next few months).  But don’t worry, I’ll be ready to go next spring.  As Rogers Hornsby said:  "People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."

So the season is over.  It ended in disappointing fashion, but it could have ended much earlier than it did.  There was a lot to enjoy.  They won all those games they needed to win until the World Series.  Max Muncy was a lot of fun.  Walker Buehler has a very bright future.  Clayton Kershaw had two great starts in the playoffs and he finished off Game 7 against the Brewers.  They kept that cheater Ryan Braun from reaching the World Series.  But the Dodgers haven’t reached their goal yet.  Since the Dodgers won their first World Series in 1955, their longest World Series drought had been 16 years from 1965-1981.  They’re now at 30 years.  The Brooklyn Dodgers were the team that never won anything.  When they signed Jackie Robinson, that started to change.  They made it to the World Series in 1947, 1949, 1952, and 1953, but they couldn’t win it until 1955.  It’s a different world in baseball now.  Back then, you just had to finish with the best record in your league to get to the World Series.  Now you have two rounds of playoffs before the World Series.  But we’ve gone back to those Brooklyn Dodger days.  The Dodgers have won their division and made the playoffs six straight years.  They’ve been to the NLCS in four of those years.  And now they’ve been in the World Series the last two years.  They’re close.  They’re going to do it.  1955 is coming.  Hopefully next year.  It’s going to be great.