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Just the sight of the Dodgers on Tuesday morning, when they opened MLB’s season in the Tokyo Series against the Cubs, was daunting, and they didn’t even have Freddie Freeman. They didn’t even have Mookie Betts. Shohei Ohtani still hasn’t pitched in a game since 2023 — something bound to happen soon.
But there they were, the reigning World Series champions, using two hits and two runs from Ohtani and five shutout innings from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and two RBIs from Teoscar Hernández and a save from new All-Star closer Tanner Scott to secure a 4-1 win. Roki Sasaki, the coveted Japanese ace whose sweepstakes ended with a Dodgers victory, started Wednesday morning. Once the rhythm of the regular season begins at the end of March, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow will start games, Freeman and Betts will return to the lineup, Kirby Yates will pitch in high-leverage spots, and Ohtani — in the ultimate variable — eventually will return to his role as a two-way player. And by the way, their manager, Dave Roberts, just signed a record managerial deal, too.
If there ever were a team that looked unbeatable in recent baseball history, it’s the Dodgers. And right now, they remain the benchmark for the Mets, the obstacle they need to overcome, the new standard that officially was set when the magical run to Game 6 of the NLCS ended at Dodger Stadium. It might seem like an impossible task if, say, the Dodgers win 110 games or find a way to win a record-setting 117th game that even the 1906 Cubs or the 2001 Mariners — the two teams in baseball history to win 106 — couldn’t.
But all the Mets have to do is figure out the formula for beating the Dodgers four times in seven games when the calendar flips to October. They have a full season worth of experimenting ahead of them. They have the trade deadline to add, perhaps, someone like Dylan Cease or Sandy Alcántara. They have six months for current injury woes to fade and new ones to subside. The Mets don’t need to figure out the Dodgers when the pair of teams meet three times in May and three times in June. That, as they found out last year, isn’t necessarily an accurate gauge for how the teams would match up in a postseason series.
