When the postmortems are finished, they will show that the Los Angeles Dodgers had no soul. And they’ll point to a team (with a couple or three exceptions) of overachievers in a division where they were unchallenged and therefore underdeveloped as a team. And it’ll get worse before it gets better.
The Los Angeles Dodgers dodged reality for a full season. They finished the year with the lowest win total of all division winners (91) and they lost their final three games of the season at a time when their engines should have been cranking up and not winding down. And above all else, they never showed themselves as having any kind of team identity.
They would have, and probably should have, been taken out by the Washington Nationals.
Except that as things turned out, the Nationals were a team even more flawed than they are. So, they limped on to face the Chicago Cubs with their only hope being that the Cubs would beat themselves. But good teams don’t do that and that’s why the Cubs are going to the World Series and the Dodgers are going home.
The Dodgers – A Team That’s Not a Team
There are, of course, exceptions to everything. Clayton Kershaw plays in a league of his own, and maybe that’s part of the problem because he is so much unlike the rest of the team. Corey Seager had a solid season and should be a lock for Rookie of the Year honors. And Kenley Jansen looked as menacing as a closer needs to be, emerging as a true star and someone to be reckoned with.
Kenta Maeda gets an honorable mention, but he’s not Zack Greinke. And Rich Hill will turn 37 during Spring Training. So, what’s left?
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You have Adrian Gonzalez, who appeared to be sleepwalking through the postseason and has suffered a loss of power over the years. And then of course, you have the circus surrounding Yasiel Puig, who was actually rejected by the Dodgers and put on waivers during the season. Puig looks to be modeling his behavior after Manny Ramirez, except that he can’t hit like Manny.
The postmortems will also give manager Dave Roberts the credit he deserves for bringing this team of misfits as far as he did. But if you watched him closely last night, he looked more like a deer caught in the headlights than he did a team leader. And you could tell he knew that both he and his team were overmatched.
The Dodgers Showed Their True Colors
For all practical purposes, the game was over in the first inning when the Cubs put up two on the scoreboard. Because against Kershaw, that’s like ten runs and it gave the Cubs all they needed to propel their confidence upwards and out of sight.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers slopped forward with at bats that ended before they even began making Kyle Hendricks look like Nolan Ryan out there. Hendricks needed only 88 pitches to put the Dodgers away, and if you ask him he’ll more than likely say that they got themselves out more often than not.
Next: Cubs Do the Little Things Right
In the end, the Dodgers resembled “laid-back L.A.” and not a baseball team that gelled at any point in the season, and certainly not in the postseason. It’s become a cliche that baseball is a team game. But if there’s one thing about cliches, it’s that they hold an element of the truth. And if truth be told, the Dodgers were a poor excuse for a team last night and throughout the season.