The Dodgers are usually not the norm in baseball. For almost all of groups within the main leagues, the final week of the common season is the final week till spring coaching.
Because the Angels performed out their remaining week, the Angel Stadium retailer featured a “Thank You Followers” sale, with as much as 50% off caps, T-shirts, polo shirts, jackets, even genuine Mike Trout jerseys.
Contained in the clubhouse, the reminders for gamers had the texture of the ultimate week of faculty: return your team-issued iPad; order your gloves for subsequent season; take your exit bodily.
Because the Dodgers play out their remaining week of the common season, on the highway, the Dodger Stadium retailer is stocking up on blue “October Baseball” T-shirts, the identical ones the gamers wore final week, after they clinched a postseason spot.
On Thursday, the Dodgers clinched the Nationwide League West, once more. On Tuesday, the Dodgers will make their thirteenth consecutive postseason look, one shy of the most important league document. Solely as soon as in these 13 seasons did the Dodgers fail to win the NL West: in 2021, after they gained 106 video games and the San Francisco Giants gained 107.
For the Angels and their adorned nearer, and for 17 different groups, Tuesday would be the second day of the offseason. That’s the norm in baseball, a minimum of exterior Chavez Ravine, the Bronx, and just lately Milwaukee.
Kenley Jansen performed October baseball for the Dodgers from 2013-21, and for the Atlanta Braves in 2022.
In 2023, the primary time in 11 years Jansen didn’t seem within the postseason, his household alerted him that the Dodgers’ playoff opener was on tv, with good pal Clayton Kershaw pitching.
Jansen had little interest in watching.
“I’m like, guys, I’m not on the Dodgers anymore,’ ” he stated this week at Angel Stadium.
He wished to be round his household. His family and friends members wished to be round him, which they assumed meant round baseball.
“I get it,” he stated. “I nonetheless really feel like I’m going to get these calls: Did you watch that recreation?”
He appreciates how troublesome it’s to get to the playoffs. In his first two full seasons, the Dodgers vs. the remainder of the league at Dodger Stadium was a sideshow to the primary occasion: Frank McCourt vs. Main League Baseball in U.S. Chapter Court docket in Wilmington, Del.
By no means thoughts whether or not the Dodgers would make the playoffs. Would the gamers receives a commission?
“We went from the bankrupt Dodgers to moving into the playoffs yearly,” Jansen stated. “I believe it was the core group, the management that we had, plus the entrance workplace and the possession desirous to win a championship yearly. They make it aggressive.
“They’ve obtained to maintain that prepare going.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, middle, celebrates with teammates within the locker room after the Dodgers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday to clinch the NL West division title.
(Darryl Webb / Related Press)
In Anaheim, for the primary time in 50 years, the Angels are certain for a second consecutive last-place end. Their final postseason look: 11 years in the past. Their final successful document: 10 years in the past.
This playoff drought included the stretch during which Trout and Shohei Ohtani performed collectively. The Dodgers are extra — rather more — than Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman.
“For me, on the opposite facet now, I see how laborious it’s to get within the playoffs,” Jansen stated. “It’s not simple. You’ve obtained to have depth — not solely right here within the huge leagues, however depth within the system — to offer your self an opportunity to win the division.”
It’s too unhealthy the Dodgers and Angels couldn’t full a commerce to get Jansen again to Los Angeles, the place he would instantly have develop into the Dodgers’ most dependable right-handed reliever.
Jansen has a 2.64 ERA this season, and he has transformed 28 of 29 save alternatives. He hasn’t given up successful in additional than a month.
However the Angels didn’t promote on the commerce deadline, declaring they had been in critical competition with out shopping for any critical upgrades.
Dodgers followers ought to take it from Jansen: Don’t take this golden period without any consideration. Take a couple of days to understand it. On Wednesday, Jansen stated, he’ll begin his offseason exercises.
On Tuesday, the Dodgers will begin the playoffs, attempting to develop into baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years. The odds are usually not of their favor: As of Thursday, Baseball Prospectus offers the Dodgers a 9.6% probability to win the World Collection, a smaller probability than the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners.
The Angels have been so unhealthy for thus lengthy {that a} division championship can be trigger for nice celebration. The Dodgers have been so good for thus lengthy that nothing however a World Collection championship would suffice.
And so, on Tuesday, the times of gratitude can finish, and Dodgers followers can resume reflexively criticizing their supervisor and grimacing about whether or not they can belief anybody of their bullpen.
