The Milwaukee Brewers haven’t any likelihood.
Neither will the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays.
The clear reality emerged from the Dodger Stadium shadows late Thursday amid a downtown-shaking roar of enjoyment and disbelief.
That is ridiculous. That is merely ridiculous, how nicely the Dodgers are enjoying, how shut the historical past books are beckoning, and the way an extraordinary summer time has been adopted with unbelievable days of the extraordinary.
The Dodgers aren’t going to lose one other sport this October. Write it down, guess it up, no main league baseball workforce has ever performed this nicely within the postseason, ever, ever, ever.
With their 3-1 victory over the Brewers Thursday in Recreation 3 of the Nationwide League Championship Sequence, the Dodgers take a three-games-to-none lead with a sweep probably within the subsequent 24 hours and coronation coming within the subsequent two weeks.
The Dodgers are going to win this NLCS and comply with it with a four-game whitewash of the World Sequence as a result of, nicely, you inform me.
How is anyone going to beat them?
Match their aces-flush rotation? Nope. Equal their scorching nearer and revived bullpen? Sorry. Higher than their deep lineup? No one is even shut.
The Dodgers are greater than midway to ending essentially the most dominant postseason in baseball historical past, it’s all there within the numbers.
The one workforce to go undefeated via the playoffs for the reason that divisional period started was the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. However the Huge Machine solely needed to win seven video games. Because the playoffs had been expanded and the take a look at turned more durable, the best October streaks have belonged to the 2005 Chicago White Sox and 1999 New York Yankees, each of whom went 11-1.
These Dodgers had been compelled into that early wild-card sequence, so in the event that they finish this postseason with out one other loss, they’ll end 13-1.
The final time a workforce on this city had such a dominating postseason was the champion 2001 Lakers, who went 15-1 within the postseason with just one stumble in opposition to Philadelphia on the evening Allen Iverson famously stepped over Tyron Lue.
These Lakers had been legendary. These Dodgers will likely be quickly.
They’re presently 8-1 within the playoffs and have received 23 of their earlier 29 video games and once more, who’s going to beat them?
Begin with that rotation. Tyler Glasnow adopted gems by Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto Thursday by twirling 5 ⅔ innings of swing and miss, holding the Brewers to at least one run with eight strikeouts, and in three video games the Brewers have scored two runs in 22 ⅔ innings in opposition to Dodger starters.
And maybe their greatest pitcher hasn’t even taken the mound but, that being Friday’s starter Shohei Ohtani.
Now for his or her deep lineup. Ohtani remains to be mired in a career-worst hunch, however his one hit Thursday was a leadoff triple that led to him scoring the primary run, and seemingly all people else chipped in. Mookie Betts had the primary RBI, Tommy Edman knocked in Will Smith with the go-ahead run within the sixth, a hustling Freddie Freeman scored on a wild pickoff try, and on and on..
End with their bullpen, which is definitely ending. Taking on for Glasnow with a runner on first and two out within the sixth Thursday, Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and Roki Sasaki shut the Brewers down the remainder of the way in which, and their regular-season weak spot has turn into their power.
By the way, Sasaki’s ninth-inning shutdown was aided by a superb in-the-hole putout by shortstop Betts, and that’s only one extra manner the Dodgers can beat you.
All this, and as Thursday confirmed, they’ve arguably the most effective home-field benefit in baseball.
No place is greater. No place attracts extra followers. And no place is louder, from the bleacher-rattling roar to the cover-your-ears sound system.
“This place has an aura about it,” mentioned Max Muncy of Dodger Stadium. “It’s the largest capability in baseball. All people talks about it once you come right here. The lights appear a little bit brighter. The music appears a little bit louder — that may really be as a result of it’s a little louder.”
Yeah, followers, you may hate the otherworldly stadium quantity, however the gamers prefer it.
“That’s a part of the perks of being at Dodger Stadium, now we have that sound system,” mentioned Muncy. “It sounds foolish to say one thing like a sound system might be a bonus. Nevertheless it actually is. When the audio system within the middle discipline are cranking and the group goes completely nuts and you are feeling the sector shaking beneath your toes, it’s a extremely large benefit. And that’s one thing we’ve all the time had right here.”
The stadium rose to the event Thursday because it all the time does this time of 12 months, filling up regardless of the bizarre mid-afternoon beginning time, consistently standing and screaming by the sport’s finish.
“Once we’ve had these large moments, there’s arguably no place that may get louder than Dodger Stadium, particularly within the postseason,” Muncy mentioned. “When you may have 56, 57,000 individuals screaming all on the identical time in a giant second, it’s fairly wild. That’s a bonus that we’ve all the time had right here, and the blokes like it.”
There’s loads to like.
