Alexander: So far, these Dodgers are kings of the rally
LOS ANGELES — Yeah, we know. A 162-0 season might not be a mathematic impossibility, but it’s pretty much a baseball impossibility.
And it is a little early – way, waaaay too soon, in fact – to crown the Dodgers as the best team ever, or assume that they’ll erase the major-league record of 116 victories in a season.
(Although it’s worth remembering that in that 60-game pandemic-fueled sprint in 2020 that people in other places like to disparage, the Dodgers did record the fifth-best winning percentage in the history of the game, .716 with a 43-17 record. In fact, if you take it out to nine decimal points they nosed out the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who with the 1906 Chicago Cubs were the only teams to win 116 in a season.)
But forget all that, and let’s hold off for a while on projecting what this team might do or where it might land in October.
If you are a Dodger fan, just enjoy what’s happening right now, because your team is again showing some special traits.
They are 8-0. They finished their first homestand of 2025 6-0, and in the process beat both of last year’s Cy Young Award winners, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves.
They’ve come from behind in six of those eight victories, and Wednesday night’s was truly spectacular. Down 5-0 after an inning and a half and making defensive gaffes reminiscent of … um, the 2024 New York Yankees in the World Series, the Dodgers still found a way against a Braves team still looking for its first victory of the season.
Max Muncy, who committed two of their three errors and was 0 for 3 going into his last at-bat, ripped a two-run double to right to tie the score in the eighth, and Shohei Ohtani – of course, on his bobblehead night – sent the people home happy with a walk-off home run to center with one out in the ninth for a 6-5 victory.
Here’s the thing: Manager Dave Roberts contends that his team isn’t playing its best baseball yet, at all. Heaven help the rest of the sport when they do.
For example, there was Muncy’s Wednesday night.
“Just the way the game started for him on the defensive side and then his first three at-bats (ground out to second, fly out to right, strikeout), and continuing to fight and not quit was huge,” Roberts said.
“This game kind of keeps presenting opportunities. And you got to be ready for them.”
We have, of course, seen this doggedness – stubbornness? – lots of times from this group. That top of the fifth in Yankee Stadium last Oct. 30 might be the best, or at least most notable, example. But they led the league during the 2024 regular season with 43 come-from-behind victories.
Even with new players that character seems to have carried over, and that’s probably no accident.
Veteran pickup Michael Conforto homered, walked twice and was on base in all four of his at-bats Wednesday night. Rookie reliever Jack Dreyer pitched two perfect innings, the eighth and ninth, and he and Ben Casparius – a late-year find last season and a significant component in the ’24 postseason – kept it close after Blake Snell struggled early.
Roberts talked during last year’s World Series about how he liked guys who wouldn’t avoid the fight, saying his players were “just more talented, but they do remind me of me. I had the toughness, but I didn’t have the talent of Mookie Betts. Yeah, I think so, and I think that’s the way it should be.
“I love people that fight. I don’t know if it’s my football background, but the playoffs, as I’ve said many times, it’s a fight. It’s a scrap. It’s a dogfight. It has to be that way.”
Before Wednesday night’s game he talked of his team having a chip on its shoulder. Afterward he elaborated.
“It’s kind of a sign of, we don’t take anything for granted,” he said. “Every game, every at-bat matters, every play, which we didn’t do well tonight. But the focus doesn’t waver. The compete. And Max was a perfect example of that tonight.”
Yes, some of it is attitude, Some of it, probably most of it, is sound offensive baseball. Consider the bottom of the second.
With that 5-0 deficit, Conforto began the inning with an eight-pitch at-bat for a walk. Will Smith popped up for the first out, and Tommy Edman hit a 3-and-1 pitch from right-hander Bryce Elder 415 feet over the center field fence to cut the deficit to 5-2.
“We just continue to take good at-bats,” Roberts said. “Conforto walked and he took some borderline pitches and led to Tommy’s homer that got us back into the game. And just kind of being able to take walks, work counts, allows us to kind of get back into games without sometimes getting hits. And then we can kind of wait for that big hit.”
When Conforto walked, according to MLB’s Gameday app, the Dodgers’ win probability was 13.9%. Oh, ye computer of little faith.
The bottom line: This team may or may not reach 117, it might or might not break any records at all, and it may or may not become the first team to go back-to-back since the 1998-99-2000 Yankees three-peated.
But it is easy to predict this: When you watch this team, you’ll be entertained.
And any time they fall behind, you’d be foolish to turn it off early.
jalexander@scng.com