After delivering a walk-off hit in the middle of an August game during the 2017 season, Yasiel Puig excitedly told the Dodger Stadium crowd that he would see them in the World Series. Sure, the Los Angeles Dodgers were amassing an impressive season, but the prediction was still bold.
While they endured a down stretch later that month and into September, the Dodgers still ran away with a fifth consecutive National League West title. They were slated to face the Arizona Diamondbacks, who some felt held an advantage because of their dominance late in the season.
The Dodgers swept their division foe, then dispatched of the defending champion Chicago Cubs in five games in the NL Championship Series. Puig didn’t just spout out a prediction after a seemingly meaningless game, he went out and helped get the Dodgers to the World Series.
Now, he’ll look to do more of the same. Puig has rankled opposing fanbases with his claims during celebrations of the Dodgers clinching the NL West and NL Division Series, claiming his team is again bound for the Fall Classic.
Speaking in a much more subdued environment didn’t dissuade him from backing off that stance, via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:
“We’re here for the sixth straight time,” Puig said after the Dodgers’ workout at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday evening. “Last year, we lost in the World Series and we want to get back in the World Series. I hope so. And my team is 100% sure that we’re going past [the Brewers] to the World Series again.”
For Puig and the Dodgers to return to the World Series, they’ll need to topple a Milwaukee Brewers team that posted the best record in the NL and therefore has home-field advantage for the NLCS.
The last time the Dodgers didn’t have homefield in a postseason series, they lost to the Cubs in the 2016 NLCS. Though to get there, Los Angeles defeated the Washington Nationals on the road in Game 5 of the NLDS.
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