After overcoming the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers eliminated the New York Mets to clinch the pennant for a 22nd time in franchise history.
Playing without the deepest pitching staff, the Dodgers’ offense put up historic numbers in the NL Championship Series, scoring the most runs in a single postseason series.
Getting over the hump from prior postseason runs had been an issue, with the Dodgers bowing out in the NLCS in 2021, and the NLDS in both 2022 and 2023. That prompted plenty of debate over the Dodgers seemingly suffering from a letdown in performance after earning the bye week under MLB’s expanded playoffs format that went into effect in 2022.
That wasn’t the case this October, which Max Muncy noted that the Dodgers changed their approach to the time off as an opportunity to regroup and band together as a unit, per AM570 L.A. Sports:
“The last two years, we’ve had five days off, right? We didn’t know how to handle that. And coming into this year, we tried multiple things. They let fans into the stadium for a sim game, trying to make it a real situation. And this year, us as players went to the front office and said, ‘Hey, this is what we’re doing.’ We told them what we wanted to do. Everyone stresses out about having the five days off, and we treated it as a reward, because it is a reward. You grind for eight months going back to February, Spring Training.
“We said, ‘Hey, we we earned the No. 1 seed, it’s a reward. You get five days off as a reward, so we wanted to treat it as a reward. We brought in some nice food, we had unbelievable catering. We had fun. We had pool tables, ping pong tables, Pop-A-Shots. We had a really good time. We were here together as a group for eight hours a day. In the past, we were here for two, three hours a day, we tried to make it as serious as possible.
“This year, we just said, no, we’re here together, boys. I am not questioning you as a father, you as a husband, you as a boyfriend, whatever. But give me three weeks. I need three weeks out of you to be with the boys. We’re going to grind through this together for three weeks, and then you can be the best husband and father you can ever be.
“But I need three weeks out of you. So for eight hours a day in those five days off, we were here together, just hanging out, having fun, having some food, talking about what we were going to do against a pitcher, watching baseball. We were just here for eight hours a day being boys, and I really think that translated into what we’re at now.”
The critique of having the bye week and the current postseason format being a detriment to top-seeded teams is likely to be pushed aside amid the Dodgers and New York Yankees playing in the World Series.
Having the bye week is more about how it is utilized, and the way the Dodgers did, they found more than just rest and recuperation.
What is different about 2024 Dodgers?
Even with the superstar nature of having Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow and many others, the Dodgers have the look of a relentless team.
Dating back to their series against the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park, the Dodgers went 9-3 after Sept. 17. That point was following the news that Glasnow would be done for the year, a big blow to their postseason outlook.
The continued nature and re-centering of who they are as a team led them to the Dodgers’ fourth World Series appearance since 2017.
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