The Los Angeles Dodgers set a franchise record with 106 wins and slugged the most home runs by any National League team all-time, among several other accolades in a wildly successful 2019 season. Yet, the team will ultimately be remembered for its shortcomings in October.
Despite jumping out to a 3-0 lead on Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals, the Dodgers fell apart late and suffered an extra-innings loss in winner-take-all Game 5 of the NL Division Series.
It marks the Dodgers’ earliest postseason exit since falling to the New York Mets — also in a Game 5 at Dodger Stadium — in the 2015 NLDS.
“I would say so, yeah,” answered Cody Bellinger when asked if this season was considered a failure. “We really expected to go all the way this year.
“We had a great regular season and came across a hot Nationals team that at the end of the day battled back and obviously won. We’re proud of it but it wasn’t the end goal that we wanted.”
Kiké Hernandez agreed with the Dodgers’ MVP candidate. “Winning 106 games in the regular season and going home after one round sucks,” he said. “You can put our season as a failure.
“Maybe down the road when all of us retire, we can look back at all the records we broke as a team this year for a pretty historic franchise like the Dodgers, but for us to be one and done, it’s tough. I don’t think anybody in this clubhouse expected us to be going home this soon. It sucks. There’s no other way to put it.”
Walker Buehler, who was entrusted with the high-pressure situation and rose to the occasion to deliver 6.2 innings of one-run ball, took a broader scope to the Dodgers’ stunning loss. “I wouldn’t say devastating,” he said.
“I would say we’re disappointed that our 25 guys didn’t get it done. I think what’s lost in Game 5 is we lost two other games along the way.”
Kenley Jansen offered a similar view. “You can’t look back and think, ‘What if?’ That’s how this game is,” he said. “One thing that I know is we gave everything we have. This whole year we battled.”
While there can be multiple interpretations on the 2019 season as a whole, what can’t be denied is the team ultimately fell well short of meeting expectations.
