Are the Dodgers 2019 chances already history?

2012 Texas Rangers

The Rangers dominated the AL West in 2010-11, averaging 93 victories and capturing the division both seasons. Their 2011 World Series defeat at the hands of the Cardinals was especially crushing since Texas led 7-5 entering the ninth inning of the potential Game 6 clincher.

That was the game when David Freese delivered his two-out ninth inning triple to tie the game and then homered in the 11th to win it.

The Rangers returned for 2013 with much the same core. Adrian Beltre, Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz and Michael Young all anchored the lineup. Matt Harrison and Yu Darvish won 18 and 16 games respectively to lead the pitching staff, while veteran closer Joe Nathan added 37 saves.

But their hopes for a third straight World Series run took a jolt during a season-ending three game series against the A’s in Oakland. Texas entered that series two games ahead of the A’s, but lost the first two games 4-3 and 3-1 to set up a Sunday finale for the divisional title. Texas took an early  5-1 lead, but a six-run Oakland fourth against Ryan Dempster and Matt Harrison gave the Athletics a lead they never relinquished, and Oakland pulled away to win 12-5.

The loss sent the Rangers into a wild card showdown against the Baltimore Orioles, with Darvish losing 5-1. Hamilton and Beltre, the heart of the Rangers offense, went a combined 0 for 8 in that elimination game

1993 Atlanta Braves

The Braves entered the National League Championship Series as heavy favorites against the Philadelphia Phillies. They were two-time defending NL champions, they had lost the 1991 World Series by the narrowest margins in a 1-0 extra inning pitcher’s duel between John Smoltz and Minnesota’s Jack Morris, they had survived a torrid pennant race with 104 wins, one better than the runner-up Giants, and they had added Greg Maddux from the Chicago Cubs the previous winter.

Maddux, the 1992 Cy Young Award winner in Chicago, repeated that honor in 1993, winning 20 of his 30 decisions and posting a league-leading 2.36 ERA.

He was backed up on the mound by Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Steve Avery, giving Atlanta the most feared rotation in baseball. As a group they had compiled a 75-33 record while making 142 of the 162 starts.

Once play began in the NLCS, all the stats painted the Braves as winners. They out-hit the Phillies .274-227, out-scored them 33-23 and out-ERA’d them 3.15-4.75.

But those stats were deceiving. Atlanta’s two wins came by scores of 14-3 and 9-4. The Phillies won the first game 4-3 in 10 innings, and took the fourth and fifth by scores of 2-1 and 4-3 (in 10 innings).  In Game 6, Dave Hollins tapped Maddux for a two-run fifth inning home run and the Phillies walked away 6-3 winners. The Braves would at least have the consolation of finally winning their World Series in 1995, defeating the Cleveland Indians.

1979 Los Angeles Dodgers

Tommy Lasorda’s team came off consecutive World Series losses, both at the hands of the Yankees.  The Yanks weren’t around in 1979. In the wake of the mid-season plane crash that killed their catcher and captain, Thurman Munson, they slid to fourth place, 13 games behind the eventual AL champion Baltimore Orioles.

But neither were the Dodgers. Lasorda’s team lost 16 games in the standings, sagging to a sub-.500 third place behind the Reds and Astros.

In part, age caught up with the team. Save for center fielder Rick Monday, every member of the starting lineup returned, but their net impact declined by 8.3 WAR. The team’s mound aces, Don Sutton and Burt Hooton, went a combined 23-25 while Tommy John took his 17 wins from 1978 to New York.

The Dodgers also got in their own way, trading Rick Rhoden to Pittsburgh over the winter for Jerry Reuss.  Rhoden would help pitch the Pirates to a World Series title; Reuss went 7-14 during his LA debut.

Part of the Dodgers’ problem was a strange, recurring inability to handle the Atlanta Braves. In 1979, the Braves were a patsy; they finished dead last in the NL West, winning just 66 games.  Yet the Dodgers went 6-12 against them, and were out-scored 87-65. The Reds, by comparison, won 12 of 18 games against the Braves, and out-scored them 85-65.

As the Braves would do in 1995, the Dodgers did eventually recover, surviving the elongated and strike-motivated playoff marathon to defeat the Yankees in six games in the 1981 World Series.

1965 New York Yankees

This was the end of the great Yankee dynasty. In 1963 and 1964 the Yanks had won the American League pennant, although they had to survive a thrilling finish in 1964. That race went to the final weekend with New York, the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles all in contention before the Yanks beat Cleveland twice to wrap up the title.

Having lost the 1963 World Series to the Dodgers in four games, they returned in 1964 only to be defeated by the St. Louis Cardinals in seven.

The Yankees showed their age in those two Series, and showed it even more in 1965. Elston Howard, 37, managed just  a .233 average and nine home runs. Mickey Mantle was 34 and limited by deteriorating legs to part-time duty, Whitey Ford, 37, did make his standard 36 starts but his 3.26 ERA translated to only a 16-13 record. Roger Maris made only 186 plate appearances producing just eight homers.

Yogi Berra was gone as both player and manager, and the fill-ins did not measure up to the standards of Yankee immortals. Those successors included Phil Linz (.207), Tony Kubek (.218), Joe Pepitone (.247), Al Downing (12-14, 3.40), Jim Bouton (4-15, 4.82) and Bill Stafford (3-8, 3.56).

Under first-year manager Johnny Keane, the Yankees started 24-28 and were eighth in the 10-team American League in early June. They never made a move, settling permanently into sixth place in mid-July and playing 36-39 ball over the course of the season’s second half.

They finished 25 games behind the American League champion Minnesota Twins. But that was good by comparison with the following season, when New York dipped all the way to the American League basement on a 70-89 record that prompted Keane’s May firing. New York had begun a decade-long absence from the World Series, the team’s longest since World War I.

1954 Brooklyn Dodgers

This was the height of the era when the Dodgers waged a pair of annual battles: first with the Giants for National League supremacy, then with the Yankees for the World Series title.

The Dodgers beat the Giants in both 1952 and 1953, winning the 1953 pennant by a decisive 13 games over the Milwaukee Braves with the Giants another nine games back. So it was no surprise when oddsmakers looked at the 1954 Dodger cast – replete with veterans of the stripe of Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Don Newcombe and Pee Wee Reese, and saw a third straight pennant.

What they failed to see was the arrival at the Polo Grounds of Willie Mays, who would spur New York past Brooklyn by five games, then to a World Series sweep of the favored Cleveland Indians.

When 1954 began, Mays was not yet an established star. As a rookie in 1951, he had performed well, with a .274 batting average and 20 home runs. But service in the Korean War limited him to just  144 plate appearances in 1952 and 1953. In 1954, though, he returned to lead the National League in batting at .345, hit 41 home runs and stun spectators with his defensive prowess. It was good enough to win the National League’s Most Valuable player Award.

In their 22 head-to-head meetings, New York beat Brooklyn 13 times, accounting for almost all of the five-game difference in the standings. In those 22 games, Mays went 29-for-92 (.354) with 10 home runs and 27 RBIs.

Brooklyn returned to the World Series in 1955..and for the first  time in the franchise’s eight appearances won it.

1938 New York Giants

These were the Giants of Mel Ott and Carl Hubbell, two-time reigning National League champions. That they had run afoul of the Yankees in both World Series – winning just three total games – was actually an accomplishment. Those same Yanks would sweep the Cubs in 1938 and Reds in 1939, then take out the Dodgers in five games in 1941.

In 1938, though,, the Dodgers began to show their age. That was nowhere more the case than on the mound, where Hubbell, 36, fell from 66 starts and 48 wins the previous two seasons to just 22 starts and a 13-10 record. He would continue to pitch into 1943, but would never again win more.

Nor did the Giants have much to pick up the slack for Hubbell. Cliff Melton was coming off a 20-9 rookie season, but he slumped to 14-14 and never blossomed into anything more than a filler piece.  Slick Castleman and Harry Gumbert also failed to develop.

Ott delivered his usual season: 36 home runs and a .311 average.  Indeed the Giants led the league in home runs with 125. But their offense was otherwise mediocre. They ranked only fifth in runs per game and fourth in batting average.

The truth was that the Cubs had overtaken New York on the mound. Fueled by a comeback season from Dizzy Dean and strong performances from Bill Lee (22-9, 2.66) and Clay Bryant (19-11, 3.10), Chicago led the league in earned run average at 3.37, a quarter of a run per game better than New York.

For the defending champs, the result was a third place finish five games behind the Cubs and also trailing Pittsburgh. It was also the start of a steeper decline, to fifth in 1939, sixth in 1940 and to last place by 1943. The Giants would not make another World Series appearance until Mays’ arrival in 1951.

1925 New York Giants

John McGraw’s Giants won four consecutive pennants between 1923 and 1924, defeating the Yankees in the 1921 and 1922 World Series before losing to them in 1923. They lost to the Washington Senators in 1924.

So it was with good reason that McGraw entered 1925 with confidence. Most of the four-time pennant winning cast returned, including Bill Terry at first base, Travis Jackson at shortstop, Fred Lindstrom at third, Ross Young and Irish Meusel in the outfield, and Frank Frisch filling in where needed.

Only on the mound did the Giants appear vulnerable. Yet even there they returned Art Nehf (14-4), Virgil Barnes, (16-10), Jack Bentley (16-5) and Hugh McQuillan (14-8). Together those four had made 96 of the team’s 154 starts.

The Giants broke well in 1925, led most of the season’s first half, but found themselves unable to shake the surprising Pittsburgh Pirates. Third in 1924, the Pirates had ramped up their offense with the emergence of Pie Traynor and Kiki Cuyler as stars at third base and in the outfield. Traynor hit .320 and Cuyler .357 to lead the Pittsburgh offense.

The result was that the Pirates found themselves in the franchise’s first true pennant race since 1909. They hit first place in late June, gradually built their lead to three games, then in late August went to the Polo Grounds for a pivotal five-game series. The Pirates won four of those games, left town leading the Giants by five, and New York never made a serious run at them again.

1923 New York Yankees

Only one team has lost consecutive World Series and then returned the next season to win baseball’s grandest prize. And the Yankees needed Babe Ruth to do it.

New York’s two defeats came in 1921 and 1922, at the very outset of what would become a four-decade dynasty and concurrent with Ruth’s arrival in New York. This was the Babe at his best: He batted .393 in 1923, hit 41 home runs, drove in 130 runs, drew 170 bases on balls, and slugged .764.

If anybody had thought to measure such a thing as OPS+ in 1923, Ruth’s would have been an off-the-charts 239. Only five better OPS+ seasons in history have been recorded; Ruth had one of those five and three others — all by Barry Bonds — were steroid-tainted.

The Yankees met the Giants for a third consecutive fall – the only time that’s ever happened – and exacted the fullest measure of revenge for their 1921 and 1922 setbacks. After losing two of the first three games, they won the last three by scores of 8-4, 8-1 and 6-4, out-hitting the Giants for the series .293-.234.

Ruth contributed seven hits, five for extra bases including three home runs. The Giants held down his production by issuing him eight bases on balls, but that only added to his glittery Series slash line: .368/.556/1.000. In the second game, Ruth’s first homer put the Yanks ahead to stay, and his second added insurance. In the clincher, Ruth’s third home run put the Yanks ahead in the top of the first.

1914 New York Giants

Having won three consecutive National League pennants only to lose all three World Series, the Giants entered 1914 as heavy favorites to repeat and possibly end their October misfortune.

For much of the season, that’s exactly what looked likely. The Giants moved to the top of the pack on Memorial Day, built their lead to five games by the end of June, and still led by six and one-half games in mid-August.

Then something strange happened. The Boston Braves, perennial second-division finishers, forgot how to lose. While the Giants stumbled through a 5-10 late August slump, the Braves surprised the league with a 19-6 run through August that catapulted them from a tepid fourth place to a mere half game out of first entering September.

Suddenly the Braves couldn’t be beat. From Sept. 1 on, they won 31 of their final 38 games, including five of nine (with one tie) against the Giants, who lost 11 games in the standings despite finishing the season 21-20. The Braves went on to stun the Philadelphia Athletics – winners over the Giants in 1911 and 1913 – in just four games.

In 1915, the shell-chocked Giants finished last for the first time in the franchise’s history. They did, however, rebound to claim the 1917 National League pennant.

1910 Detroit Tigers

The first team to lose consecutive World Series – to the Cubs in 1907 and 1908 – the Tigers made it three straight when they fell to the Pirates in 1909.

Still there was every reason to expect the Tigers to contend again in 1910. After all, they had Ty Cobb in his prime, seeking his fourth of an eventual nine consecutive batting titles. Cobb won that title, batting .383. Cobb’s outfield mates, Sam Crawford ad Davy Jones, backed that up with solid seasons, and Tiger mound aces George Mullin and Bill Donovan performed admirably.

Still, Detroit couldn’t keep pace with Philadelphia’s sensational pitching staff, which dominated the American League in 1910. As a group, their league-leading 1.79 ERA was a full point better than Detroit’s 2.82. Jack Coombs went 31-9 with a 1.30 ERA, Eddie Plank was 16-10, 2.01, and Chief Bender posted  23-5 record and 1.58 ERA.

The trio was not only good but omnipresent. Together they pitched 753 of the 1,422 innings played by the Athletics that season. In the World Series, Coombs won three times as the Athletics held the National League champion Chicago Cubs to a .234 team batting average and single victory.

The Tigers won 11 of their first 16 games, led in early May and re-took the lead in mid-June. But they were unable to stay with the Athletics’ killing pace. Trailing the A’s by six games in early July, the defending champions came to Philadelphia for a vital four-game series at recently opened Shibe Park and got swept, leaving town 10 games back. Cobb had five hits in that series, but the A’s lit into Tiger pitching for 43 hits.

From that point on the Tigers played out the string, eventually finishing in third place, 18 games behind.

The outlook for the Dodgers is definitely not positive for the 2019 season, based on history.