Dodgers have best record in majors — and why that will matter in October

MINNEAPOLIS – They’re missing their All-Star closer.

And two All-Star starting pitchers.

And their All-Star catcher.

And one of their All-Star outfielders.

And the Dodgers have the best record in baseball.

Mookie Betts has just started hitting, Kyle Tucker is still waiting to do so, and the Dodgers are 51-29 after their 12-3 destruction of the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night at Target Field.

“We got really good players,” Freddie Freeman said. “Guys who care.

“Doesn’t matter what’s happening.”

Their offense has been up and down, but their record is evidence the team isn’t nearly as inconsistent as it has felt.

“The constant,” manager Dave Roberts said, “has been the pitching and the defense.”

Outside of their 9-2 start and a two-week stretch in the second half of May in which they went 12-2, the Dodgers haven’t resembled the 120-win juggernaut they were expected to be, but they remain the class of the major leagues.

In Los Angeles, baseball season doesn’t really start until October, but that’s more a feeling than reality. 

Because in truth, the games the Dodgers win now will better position them to win games in the postseason.

They’re on their way to claiming home-field advantage.

“Home-field advantage is one of the things we want to have,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We all know that traveling, especially across the country, it can make it really hard on you.”

If the Dodgers finish the regular season with the best record in baseball, home-field advantage will be theirs throughout the playoffs.

“I think for the regular season, that’s our goal: to win the division, have the best record in the National League and go from there,” Roberts said.

In recent years, the Dodgers have shown they won’t chase that at any cost. 

They have prioritized health over a higher seed, and their approach has been vindicated by the results. In 2024, the Dodgers had home-field advantage for the entire postseason. Last year, as the NL’s No. 3 team, they had to play a best-of-three Wild Card Series, after which they were the lower seed in each of the next three series, including the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

Both times, the Dodgers were crowned champions. But their preference is clear. They’d rather have home-field advantage than not.

Their experience in 2024 explains why.

Their NL Division Series against the San Diego Padres went to a fifth and final game at Dodger Stadium. They didn’t have to travel right after. Their next series started at Dodger Stadium. 

That was also where the Dodgers eliminated the New York Mets in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series. Once again, the Dodgers were spared the trouble of boarding an airplane the next day. The Dodgers hosted the New York Yankees in Games 1 and 2 of the World Series.

Compare that to what happened last year.

Their only postseason series that started at home was their Wild Card Series against the Reds. Rojas acknowledged that being the lower seed in each of the next three rounds was a source of stress.

The Dodgers were 41-40 on the road in the regular season. The Philadelphia Phillies, whom they played in a Division Series, were 55-26 at home.

Rojas said that made Game 4 of the best-of-five series at Dodger Stadium a must-win game.

“It was a motivation for us, to not have to go back to Philadelphia for Game 5,” Rojas said. “We wanted to close things out before we did that.”

The Dodgers did, winning the series three games to one.

The nightmare scenario they feared in the NLDS was something they had to deal with in the World Series.

With a three-games-to-two deficit, the Dodgers had to return to Canada to play the Toronto Blue Jays in Games 6 and 7.

Game 7 being at Rogers Centre made the greatest moment of Rojas’ career as dramatic as it was. If the game hadn’t been on the road, Rojas wouldn’t have shocked a stadium in Toronto into silence with his ninth-inning home run.

As much as Rojas cherishes that memory, he would prefer to not recreate it.

“We would like to play a Game 7 at home instead,” he said.

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