After a grueling five-game National League Division Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers came out ahead of the San Diego Padres to punch their ticket to the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets.
The Dodgers took Game 1 of the series before losing the next two and putting themselves on the brink of elimination in the NLDS for the third consecutive season. However, they bounced back with consecutive shutouts in Game 4 and Game 5 to pull off the wins, relying heavily on their bullpen and getting the correct matchups.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was completely locked in, making one right decision after another all throughout the final two games, and he had to be nearly perfect for his club to come out ahead.
“Yeah, I’m elated. I’m tired. I’m happy,” Roberts said after the Game 5 win. “So, yeah, I’m just excited. I’m proud of our guys. We talked about this series, it was going to test us, and we fought. We didn’t relent, not one time, and I just couldn’t be more excited for this ballclub.”
The series proved to be an emotional one for both sides, and tempers flared on more than one occasion. Part of that was the Dodgers being “tired” of losing in the postseason and dates back to their 2022 NLDS matchup with the Padres where they lost in four games before being swepy by the Arizona Diamondbacks last year.
“It’s relief. It’s redemption. I wanted to beat those guys,” Roberts said. “We all wanted to beat those guys really bad. We played a very good ball game today, certainly on the pitching and the defensive side. We’re going to celebrate tonight, as you can see. But the job’s not done and you will see the focus, the fire going forward, with the expectation to win eight more games. And that Mets team is playing really good baseball, but we’ll be ready.”
The Dodgers and Padres rivalry is short in history, but has quickly grown in intensity over the years. That extra energy and emotion showed itself often throughout the series, and it made the victory all the more meaningful.
“I’ll tell you this rivals 2004 when we beat the Yankees, when I was a player with the Red Sox,” Roberts began. “It rivals beating the Braves in 2020 to get to the World Series. Those are probably, this is right there with it. You’re talking about one of the best teams in baseball over there.
“And Mike (Shildt) and his staff did a great job preparing those guys. And it was a dogfight. I’ve got nothing but respect for those guys over there.
“But to kind of win this series how we did, to kind of fall behind — and those guys coming into the postseason had a lot of momentum — speaks to the character of our guys. This is right up there.”
Dave Roberts praises Dodgers adversity
The Dodgers dealt with a lot during the season, starting with the scandal involving Ippei Mizuhara before turning into a non-stop barrage of injuries to their roster. That continued up until just before the start of the postseason when Freddie Freeman, Miguel Rojas and Brusdar Graterol all suffered injuries that limited their availability to different degrees.
Still, they were able to come through to win the NL West and defeat the Padres in the NLDS, and Roberts credits his players for stepping up.
“I’ll say this, I haven’t been a part of as much adversity as this ballclub has had,” Roberts said. “And not one time have we made an excuse or given ourselves an out to not win 11 games in October.
“And that’s a credit to the character of the guys, the coaches, the front office, getting a lot of depth that we’ve had to tap into. So that’s why like I told the guys in the clubhouse, I’ve never believed in a group of guys more than this group. I really haven’t.”
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