Thursday’s win over the San Diego Padres secured the National League West for the Los Angeles Dodgers and took a load off manager Dave Roberts. “I’m excited that tonight, it’s not like a do-or-die game,” he said before the Dodgers 11-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night. The division pennant is Los Angeles’ third in a row and 11th in the past 12 seasons.
Despite this dominance, the team has only one World Series ring — which came in the 60-game pandemic-shortened season of 2020 — to show for it’s regular season success. At 96-64 (.600), the Dodgers are 2.
0 games ahead of the 94-66 Philadelphia Phillies for best record in the NL with a magic number of 1. The path to the World Series becomes easier as the no. 1 seed and when having home field advantage through the Championship Series, but Roberts isn’t actually concerned with that.
“I think it’s more of just the idea of letting things play out the way they’re going to and try not to influence the wins and losses too much,” Roberts said of pushing for the best record. “The most important thing is to take care of our relievers, get them ready for the Division Series, get them out of (Denver) healthy, position players — as you see — I’ve rested a couple guys. I’ll do that tomorrow as well.
” The lack of pressure to post three wins in Colorado, which is at altitude and harder on the body, led Los Angeles to hold back a handful of players like Freddie Freeman, Miguel Rojas, Walke.