13 hours Ago
PHILADELPHIA — No, the Los Angeles Dodgers will not keep this going forever. But the record start by a reigning World Series champion has done little to dim the euphoria surrounding the club. Going 8-0 and winning games in an absurd fashion sure makes it feel like anything is possible.
“I think each night we’re unbeatable, and we’ll see how that works out,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. Advertisement “The belief is big here,” new ace Blake Snell said. “We believe we should win every game.
” “Not just tonight, there is a good vibe within the team,” Shohei Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “So I just think that’s allowing us to come back in these games to win.” The Dodgers open a three-game series Friday against the Phillies on a historic roll.
The context lies in the numbers. 8-0 The 1933 New York Yankees had represented the gold standard for how to start a season coming off a championship, beating up on the Boston Red Sox four times and the Philadelphia Athletics three times as part of a 7-0 start the year after Babe Ruth called his shot in the 1932 World Series. No defending champion since the 1985 Detroit Tigers had started better than 6-0.
Recent history doesn’t rule out hot starts: The Texas Rangers started last year 6-2. So did the 2021 Dodgers, fresh off the 2020 title. No one has ever started off this well, though.
Starting strong isn’t necessarily everything. The 1933 Yankees lost the American League by seven games. The 1985 Tigers finished in third place.
10 That’s how many Hall of Famers were on that 1933 Yankees squad, from Ruth and Lou Gehrig to Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, manager Joe McCarthy and more. These Dodgers certainly will have several Cooperstown immortals in their own right, from Ohtani to Mookie Betts to Clayton Kershaw to Roberts to Freddie Freeman, among others, rounding out their cases. But .
.. 2 The number of games the Dodgers have had both Betts and Freeman in the lineup this season, a total that’ll stay stagnant through the end of this trip with Freeman landing on the injured list Thursday.
Neither Betts nor Freeman played in either of the Dodgers’ season-opening games in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs; Betts dealt with a stomach virus that caused him to drop nearly 20 pounds, and Freeman dealt with a recurrence of the rib discomfort he played with during last year’s postseason. Advertisement Betts has played all but one game since the Dodgers’ regular-season slate came stateside. Freeman last played on March 29 after aggravating his surgically repaired right ankle.
6 That’s how many times they’ve come back and won a game in which they trailed at any point. The Dodgers have had to get used to rallying from behind, the latest being the five-run gap they had to make up Wednesday to complete a sweep of the Atlanta Braves. “(Some teams) have a tendency to try to hit like a five-run home run, but we just do a good job of taking it at-bat by at-bat and understanding we have a deep lineup and we’re capable of putting together a big inning at any moment,” Tommy Edman said.
18-4 That’s the Dodgers’ home run total versus their opponents’ home run totals. Only the Yankees have hit more home runs (22) than the Dodgers this season, and only the Rays (two) and Pirates (three) have allowed fewer home runs than the Dodgers. Edman has hit as many home runs as the entire Dodgers team has allowed.
Sometimes, it’s just as simple as keeping the ball in the park when you’re on the mound and hitting it out of the park when you’re at the plate. 29.9 The Dodgers’ defense may be an issue to monitor.
The quickest way to mitigate a defense is to prevent balls in play altogether, and Los Angeles’ 29.9 percent strikeout rate trails only the Phillies (34.5 percent) and Astros (30.
6 percent) for best in baseball during this limited sample. This, with strikeout-heavy pitchers like Snell and Roki Sasaki not generating much swing-and-miss through their first two starts. No bullpen has been better at striking out the opposition than the Dodgers (35.
3 percent). 331 Entering Thursday, the Dodgers had shown more high velocity than any team in the sport, firing 331 pitches tracked at 95 mph or more. The next closest was the Washington Nationals, at 254.
The velocity plays up even more when opposing hitters haven’t gotten as many looks at the Dodgers’ fastballs as other teams: The Dodgers have thrown fastballs 50.6 percent of the time, the fifth-lowest percentage in baseball. Advertisement 1955 The only other Dodgers teams to have a better start than this one? The 1955 “Boys of Summer,” who started 10-0 en route to their only title in Brooklyn, and the 1940 Dodgers, who started 9-0 and finished 12 games behind the Cincinnati Reds for the National League pennant.
(Top photo of Mookie Betts: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images).
