Even after a disappointing end to the unofficial first half of the 2025 season that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers lose seven straight games at one point, they still sit atop the National League West with a comfortable lead in the standings.
With a 58-39 record coming out of the All-Star break, the Dodgers are two wins ahead of where they stood at this point last year when they were 56-41. In fact, this season has been strikingly similar to their 2024 season.
Injuries have once again been a problem, but the organization has managed to work around them just like last year.
As far as comparing themselves to their performance in 2024, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts doesn’t believe that is a productive exercise. His focus is on taking the rest of the season day-by-day and not focusing on what their record should be at this point.
“I think that’s hard to chase, as far as kind of the win-loss,” Roberts said. “I think for me, it’s just look at each day separately and try to win as many games as possible. Yeah, I mean, we’ve had some things to go through, but we’ve managed it, I think, really well. And there’s still a lot of baseball left.”
However, there are a few key checkpoints Roberts looks for over the course of a season to gauge how his team is performing.
“But as far as markers and things like that, I would say the only thing is you sort of want to get out to good start,” he said. “You want to finish, go into the break strong, get guys back healthy, enjoy the break, and then kind of come off good to kind of ride that to the end of the season.
“So that’s sort of probably what I look at, kind of overarching.”
The Dodgers did get off to a strong start, winning their first eight games of the season. They also won two straight games just before the All-Star break to end their losing skid, making a case they checked off another box for Roberts.
In addition, players are getting healthy with Tyler Glasnow recently returning and both Blake Snell and Blake Treinen on their rehab assignments. Now, they just need to come off the break with a strong start to meet all of Roberts’ goals.
Part of the reason Roberts judges his team’s performance through a macro lens is because of their track record of avoiding prolonged struggles during the season, a result of the clubhouse culture.
“Yeah, we don’t do that,” Roberts said of the extreme ebbs and flows most teams experience in a season. “We’re very consistent. We don’t do that. We have guys out there doing PFPs right now. Clayton gets 3,000 strikeouts, and he’s the first one taking a rep.
“So I think those are things that allow for us to be consistent and not have let downs, whether it be in a month or a season after a championship season.”
Dodgers’ record against winning teams
At the break, the Dodgers have gone just 22-23 against teams with winning records. However, Roberts isn’t concerned with the records of teams the Dodgers beat because they all count the same in the standings.
“No, I don’t. I don’t. I think that you still got to play the schedule,” he said. “I know we’re a good team, and so the point is to win as many games in the regular season as possible.
“So I really don’t care who we beat. I just want to win more games than anyone. So I think right now, or even going forward, I don’t pay too much attention to that.”
Context in this situation is especially important. If the Dodgers were fully healthy and still struggling against good teams consistently, that would be an entirely different conversation.
But right now they just need to get back to full health and then they should expect to play better through the rest of the season.
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