By now the Dodger losses are aftershocks

They're far from the only team that loses its regular-season groove at playoff time

Lance Lynn

The Dodgers have become a constant of the fall, like marshmallows.

Add just a little fire and they soften quickly. This time it took three games, in which they scored six runs, their starting pitchers got a total of 14 outs, and they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks, who were 59-60 on August 7 and who have four starting position players who are 22 or 23 years old.

Lance Lynn, the Game 3 pitcher for the Dodgers, broke Kurt Warner’s Arizona record for total yardage in the air. Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, former MVPs emerging from one of the great regular seasons ever by a top-of-the-lineup pair, chased bad pitches like Keystone Kops.

At least they got through the post-mortems smoothly, with all the practice they’ve accumulated. Not much to say, they just played better, etc. They didn’t claim the playoffs were all luck, as Oakland general manager Billy Beane used to say, and they didn’t point fingers or pretend it didn’t hurt.

Maybe they could see it coming. Maybe we all should have seen it coming.

Go back two years. Those Dodgers won 106 games. And why not? They had Corey Seager, Trea Turner, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner at the plate, and they had Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urias, Walker Buehler, Dustin May and Max Scherzer as starting pitchers. Buehler and Urias were 36-7 that season.

 In the bullpen, the only place where the ‘23 Dodgers maintained their honor in the playoffs, the ‘21 team had Kenley Jansen, Blake Treinen and a better version of Joe Kelly. Depth? They could shape-shift Chris Taylor into any role they wanted, and they had Gavin Lux and, at the end, a fairly serviceable version of Albert Pujols.

And that team didn’t win anything either. With May and Max Muncy hurt, and with Scherzer unable to go in the Championship Series, they lost to the Braves in six games. In that series, the Dodgers couldn’t scratch against Tyler Matzek and they couldn’t get Eddie Rosario out, two extraordinary phenomena.

Weird, contrary things happen in every series from April through September. The Braves (104 wins) lost two out of three to Oakland (50 wins) from May 29-31. To expect normalcy in October, when you have to win three or four series, is unrealistic.

The point is that the ‘23 Dodgers, if we’re talking talent, were a shadow of their ‘21 ancestors, and yet everyone seemed to know that in March. San Diego was the clear favorite to win the N.L. West, particularly since Lux tore up his knee in spring training. Suddenly the middle infield was quicksand, at least until Betts solved it by coming from rightfield and playing second base.

People weren’t even sure the Dodgers would make the playoffs, but they won 100 games and ran away with the West yet again. None of that could restock the pantry that never really had Buehler or Treinen, lost May and Gonsolin to injury and then Urias to a suspension for domestic violence, which was, as suspected, the tipping point.

Many fans in Dodgerland will ignore all of that and castigate manager Dave Roberts, for the same reason they scratch themselves upon waking up. It’s a habit, a particularly dumb one, since Roberts built diamonds out of rust this season and is fourth alltime in winning percentage. He is 310 games over .500, which ranks 16th all time, and everyone above him on that list has managed for at least 13 years.

So when the scar tissue finally builds up in November or December, the Dodgers will realize they did all right. Or at least they will realize that they weren’t the only summer warriors to hit the recycler.

There have been 22 teams with 100 or more wins since 2011. Five have won World Series. Two have lost World Series. The other 15 did not get there at all. Those figures can be 23 and 16 if the Braves don’t come from behind and beat the Phillies in their N.L. Division Series.

In 2022, the Dodgers, Mets and Braves topped 100 wins and fell short of the grail. The reason it’s happening more often is twofold: The postseason has expanded, with more capable teams in the mix, and the postseason has never been more different from the regular season.

There is a widening gap between the serious teams and the superfluous teams, between the ambitious and the frivolous. There are vast stretches of time between real showdowns. The lines were blurred this season because the rich Mets, Angels, Yankees, Cardinals and Padres were surprisingly bad, but the urgency meter is generally low, especially with 12 of 30 teams in the playoffs. Tampa Bay won 99 games. It was 51-19 against teams below .500. Its playoff run lasted two games.

The Braves pounded their way through the regular season, piling up numbers, setting unofficial records for dugout salutations. They also were 23-18 in one-run games. They were closer to the ground than they appeared, and when they began losing starting pitchers to injury they were as vulnerable as anyone else, especially against a Philadelphia team with two solid starting pitchers, long lines of offensive power, and no fear of the familiar Braves, whom the Phillies beat in last year’s playoffs. That’s not to say Atlanta can’t still win this series, but before 1995 they wouldn’t have had to worry about Philadelphia in the playoffs because wild-cards didn’t get in. That system also bred more drama in regular-season games.

The Dodgers were 16-15 in one-run games, a stat that gets skewed by the ghostrunner rule in extra innings. But, like every other team, they struggle against the top starting pitchers. The difference today is that the top starting pitcher is disappearing like the Amur leopard. Only five starters pitched 200 innings in 2023. In 1998, there were 56 who did. In other words, you can go several weeks in the regular season without facing anyone who would come close to defining the term “ace.” That builds a sense of immunity that dissipates, more often than not, in October.

The Yankees who won World Series in 1996 and then from 1998 through 2000 did so by winning three series a year. That is one of the best explanations of their greatness. The Astros reached their seventh consecutive A.L. Championship Series when they beat Minnesota on Wednesday, and they are going for their third world championship in that span. They should be as susceptible to playoff whims as anyone else, but they keep the pipeline humming, keep bringing up young, prepared ballplayers, keep rolling even when it’s time to let go of George Springer, Carlos Correa and Gerrit Cole.

And their stars don’t seize up in October, maybe because their October memories are largely good, maybe because they’re not trying to bury seven years of disappointment with one swing.