LOS ANGELES — Case closed? Freddie Freeman thinks so.
“I mean, we had a layoff last year. We won the World Series,” Freeman said. “So we crushed that narrative.”
It’s probably not that simple.
Major League Baseball changed its postseason format beginning in 2022, offering a first-round bye (and five-day break) to the teams with the best two records in each league. In the first two years of that format, teams that had the five-day break went 23-28 – with 17 of those wins produced by the Houston Astros (who won the World Series in 2022 and reached the American League Championship Series in 2023).
The Dodgers didn’t handle it well either year. They lost their first series each year, winning just one game each time.
The break got a lot of the blame, particularly in 2023 when they hit .177 as a team while being swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks (including a combined 1 for 21 from Freeman and Mookie Betts).
They obviously handled the break better on the way to their 2024 championship – but even then they lost two of their first three games against the Padres in the NL Division Series.
“I don’t think there’s a magic formula that we created or another team created that makes you come out firing on all cylinders,” Betts said, hesitant to say the Dodgers have figured it out. “The only thing is experience and experience meaning game experience. Going five or six days, you’re going to lose a little bit of that but I think everything will be alright.”
The timing is much different this year. The Dodgers didn’t finish with one of the two best records in the National League for the first time since 2018 and consequently rolled right into their Wild Card Series against the Cincinnati Reds with just one day off. They responded by posting the best two-game team OPS to start a postseason in MLB history.
This time, they won their break after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers, hitting ‘Pause’ for six days in the middle of the postseason instead of the beginning.
“For me, it’s really different. Because all we’re trying to do right here is get four more wins to win a World Series,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “Last year, when we had the bye, and the year before, we were trying to get through one more month of baseball. You’re trying to prepare for that. You’re trying to get some guys healthy. But I think everybody is healthy right now, and everybody is in a really good place to approach these last seven games of the year. And I feel like we’re doing everything we can to stay locked in, stay prepared, and be ready for (Game 1 on Friday).”
The Dodgers’ approach this year has essentially been the same as last year. They took Saturday off to savor their NLCS victory then started daily workouts on Sunday peppered with live batting practice at first, progressing to intrasquad games.
“I think (we’re) actually much more comfortable,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday of handling the extended break. “We’re flying out tomorrow (to Toronto) which kind of breaks up the monotony of not playing. We took the one day off but the guys are active, the guys feel good. I do think there were some guys who were nursing some things so to get us back to full health.
“We’ve got another simulated game tonight so I feel good about the guys’ focus and playing. We’ll be ready to go on Friday.”
The Dodgers might be playing their best baseball of the season during this 9-1 postseason run
Recent history doesn’t make stopping postseason momentum look like a good idea. Since the LCS went to a seven-game format in 1985, 10 teams before the Dodgers advanced to the World Series after a four-game sweep. Only three of those teams won the World Series – the Astros in 2022, the Washington Nationals in 2019 and the Atlanta Braves in 1995.
It’s not just sweeping that hasn’t helped. Of the last 15 LCS that didn’t end on the same day, the team that finished its business sooner has gone 3-12 in the World Series. The Blue Jays will have half as much down time as the Dodgers this week.
“Yes and no,” Betts said when asked if he sees the extended break as a good thing. “I think it’s nice to have rest and kind of let everybody take a deep breath and rest up or whatnot. It’s also something to kind of playing and staying in a rhythm. We didn’t have that choice so we’ll just enjoy the break and be ready to go.”
The Dodgers could be insulated by their starting pitching in this regard. The down time seems to have a greater effect on hitters than pitchers who are much more accustomed to being out of game action for days at a time.
“Yeah, I do think that’s the case,” Roberts agreed. “But I will say we’ve got this Trajekt machine in the cage that guys take a lot of at-bats off of to get familiar with different pitchers and get their timing. It’s not live, but it’s a pretty good simulation on top of the simulated games we’re playing with each other. But having the pitchers kind of fresh and frisky going into this World Series is a good thing.”
One of those pitchers straddles both challenges as a two-way player.
“I do see it as a positive in terms of being able to rest, both as a position player and as a pitcher,” Shohei Ohtani said through his interpreter. “We’ve had some off days (during the postseason) but we’ve played some very meaningful games that were very stressful.
“I think it’s going to be really important for us to be able to have that kind of game edge and to be able to maintain it throughout this week.”