The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres are meeting in the National League Division Series for only the second time, with both matchups coming since 2020 and under a similar set of circumstances.
Two years ago, the Dodgers and Padres both needed to win a Wild Card Series in order to meet in the NLDS. This year, only San Diego faced that obstacle as L.A. earned a bye into the NLDS and finished with the best record in baseball.
Though, in 2020, the Dodgers finished only six games ahead of the Padres to win the NL West. This season the teams were separated by 22 games in the standings.
Moreover, the Dodgers went 14-5 against the Padres and never lost one of their head-to-head series.
Being prohibitive favorites in the series could lend to a lax attitude, but manager Dave Roberts is confident the Dodgers will avoid such “pitfalls.”
“The win-loss in the season I think certainly has been skewed, but I think that if you were a part and really follow each game, they could have went either way, a lot of them,” Roberts added.
“So, it’s obviously a team that’s coming off a very big series, emotional series. A very talented team. We’re going to have our hands full. So there’s going to be no letdown on our part. The regular season has no bearing on the postseason.
“It’s the best-of-five. So history, in our opinion, doesn’t really matter. We feel good with where we’re at as far as having the five days to kind of reset, get some guys that had some injuries to kind of get back on track, so we feel good where we’re at.”
Freddie Freeman aware Padres pose threat to Dodgers
The Padres find themselves in a similar position to the 2021 Atlanta Braves that caught a wave of momentum and rode it to a World Series win. Having experienced that firsthand, Freddie Freeman is mindful of not taking the Padres for granted.
“I don’t think anybody in this room picked the Padres to beat the Mets. They’re playing good baseball,” he said. “They’ve been playing good baseball to get there. We know they’ve got a lot of momentum coming off of that.
“We’ve got to go out there and strike first. Julio (Urías) needs to go out there and just be Julio. Don’t be any different. He had a 2.1 ERA all year. He pitched great. We just have to quiet it down and just play our game because our game is good enough.
“Like last year, no one picked us to win anything. So really there’s no pressure. You just have to go out there and play the game. I think when you have that mentality, you go out there and you have nothing to lose, and everyone just talks about the other team, so it’s kind of easy to go out there and just play your game.
“I think that kind of helps, but when you’ve got a team that you’ve been playing against for so long and they know how good we are — and we know they’re a really good team — so it’s just going to be a great series. Good starting pitching on both sides. Good offenses. They’re hot, and we’ve been hot for seven months.”
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