LOS ANGELES — Maybe you heard, New York has been going through it.
I mean, The Fifth Inning in Game 5 of last year’s World Series? Now an epic collapse by the Knicks against the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night!
And then there’s new Mets superstar Juan Soto. He’s in it, too.
it pron. 1. the animal or thing 2. a slump, a funk, a first-impression #fail of fairly epic proportions, if only for where on the planet it’s unfolding – New York City.
Next stop on the Dodgers’ 162-game dress rehearsal.
Manager Dave Roberts’ star-studded cast has a three-game series starting Friday against those Mets, whose season they just ended last year in the National League Championship Series.
Of course, maybe you registered that just a few days ago, the defending World Series champion Dodgers also “were in it,” as Roberts reminded us Wednesday night. His club had just gotten to both feet with a 3-1 victory, chasing a four-game-losing blip with a second consecutive victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
That left a better taste heading to the Big Apple, where Soto’s bitter spiral has been helped none by the dark cloud of freakout following his every move since he began his first season as a member of the Mets.
Soto’s new club recruited him away from the Yankees with a monster 15-year, $765 million contract, and so far the 26-year-old’s production – his .243/.374/.429 (.803 OPS) – hasn’t lived up to his historic contract … though he apparently might have made some personal history Wednesday by striking out looking in consecutive at-bats without swinging the bat.
A stoic, bat-on-the-shoulder protest, perhaps, for having been moved down from his usual second to third in the batting order? Or maybe a reaction to the steaming pile-on of hot takes happening in New York?
Callers lighting up sports talk radio, debating what’s a bigger deal – Soto not shuffling or Soto not hustling? Tuesday’s back page of the New York Post screaming, “JUAN SLO-MO: Soto fails to bust it out of box — again”? I’m imagining any voices calling for perspective – Mike Piazza got booed at Shea Stadium too! – being shouted down by the slanderous, impatient mob stressed about a team losing five of seven.
The regular season just means something different in New York than it does in L.A., where the baseball-loving populace has been conditioned by so much regular-season success – 11 division titles in 12 years – that it feels, well, regular.
In this town, the regular season is a network TV procedural – of course they’re gonna catch the bad guy at the end. As safe a bet-your-bottom-dollar wager as the sun coming out tomorrow. The Dodgers are out here running prelims, dutifully engaged in an extra-extended spring training exercise. Talkin’ ’bout practice, basically.
So, a four-game losing streak, in May? No one’s head explodes. No one loses any sleep. Everyone, still chillin’.
The postseason, that’s when things get real around here. That’s when we buckle up. Let ’em see us sweat.
But until then?
It’s really hard not to take the regular season for granted when Roberts and the Dodgers’ braintrust expertly steer the ship through the long summertime voyage every season. When they’ve not just safely gotten to port, but gotten their first every year but 2021, when the San Francisco Giants finished one game ahead.
When they’ve gone and sapped so much of the suspense from our summers.
And now, with this roster, the best money can buy, as loaded as any ever, the envy of every other baseball city not accustomed to such regular success? It’s not that it is easy, but it looks it.
Only one team gets to line up Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman to greet opposing pitchers every game – and then insert His Clutchness, Teoscar Hernandez, behind them to come through on cue, with a game-winning three-run blast just days after returning from the injured list.
Only the Dodgers have a pitching staff – the furthest thing from invincible – that is so loaded with top-end talent that every time they have to put one guy on the shelf they can point to another to replace him with reasonable faith that he’ll be able to pick up the team in his place. Like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Dustin May did Tuesday and Wednesday against the Diamondbacks.
It’s not that these Dodgers are immune to losing or losing streaks, it isn’t that they don’t feel pressure. It’s just that experience tells them – and us, here, in L.A. – that this isn’t the time of year that warrants it.
Remember, back in 2001, the Seattle Mariners tied a major-league record with 116 wins, and then they lost to the Yankees in the ALCS. The 2022 and ’23 Dodgers broke that Seattle team’s record by winning 60 games by four or more runs – but neither of those Dodger teams won a World Series.
No, those Dodger teams were going through it for real, fizzling out spectacularly in NL Division Series losses to the San Diego Padres and Diamondbacks, recent history that probably made you appreciate last season’s championship even more. Current events that make L.A. less likely to overreact to the inevitable uphill stretches and downhill swings that precede the playoffs, and less likely to burden a ballclub with unnecessary angst until it’s necessary angst.
The sky might be falling in New York, or maybe it won’t be, but the thing about the Dodgers, this time of year? Nothing to worry about.