The Dodgers’ third straight 100-win season led to a third consecutive postseason flop.
A three-game NL Division Series sweep by the Diamondbacks that ended with a 4-2 defeat Wednesday in Phoenix highlighted how much expanded playoffs have devalued the regular season.
“There’s some things with the format that people can dissect or whatever, but the bottom line is that the last two years we’ve got outplayed in the postseason,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It doesn’t matter if it was a seven-game series, we lost the first three games. For me, I’ve got to do a better job of figuring out a way to get our guys prepared for the postseason. I’ll own that.”
The Dodgers have reached the playoffs in 11 straight years, the third-longest streak in major league history behind the Braves’ 14 from 1991-2005 around the 1994 strike and the Yankees’ 13 from 1995-2007.
The Dodgers won the NL West in 10 of those seasons, yet their only World Series in that span was following the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Led by Roberts, they have 100 or more wins in five of the last six full seasons.
Expectations again were high this year, with a starry roster and a $222 million opening-day payroll, baseball’s fifth highest.
From April through September, they set the standard. Then in October, they turned so ordinary.
“Falling this way, not only does it hurt, it’s embarrassing,” Dodgers center fielder Kiké Hernández said.
After winning 106 games in 2021, the Dodgers were eliminated in the NLCS by the Braves, who had 18 fewer wins.
After winning a big league-best 111 games last year, the Dodgers were knocked out in the division series by the Padres, who had 22 fewer wins.
And after winning 100 games this season, the Dodgers were swept by the Diamondbacks, who had 16 fewer wins.
Clayton Kershaw, Bobby Miller and Lance Lynn, who gave up four solo homers in the third inning Wednesday, combined to go 0-3 with a 25.07 ERA, .571 opponents’ batting average and 1.809 opponents’ OPS. They lasted a combined 4 2/3 innings, the fewest outs for a team’s starters over the first three games of a postseason series.
An overtaxed bullpen had to get 64 of 78 outs.
Offense fizzled, too, following five off days caused by a first-round bye.
The Dodgers scored a team-record 906 runs during the regular season, second in the majors behind the Braves. They scored just two runs in each game against the Diamondbacks and hit .177.
Astros in ALCS again: José Abreu homered for the third time in two games, a two-run rocket in the fourth inning that launched the Astros to their seventh straight ALCS with a 3-2 win that eliminated the Twins in Game 4 of their division series Wednesday in Minneapolis.
The Astros finished with 10 homers in the series. Abreu had eight RBIs.
The defending World Series champions will host the Rangers in Game 1 of the ALCS on Sunday.