Commentary: The 2023 Dodgers, the team that keeps finding new ways to win
Dodger fans are spoiled. With our team wrapping up its 10th first-place finish in 11 seasons this weekend, another National League West title for the Dodgers is about as expected as anything gets in professional sports.
But it shouldn’t feel routine, and in this era of data-driven analytics, feelings still matter. After all, feelings are what drive us to show up at a place as tortuously inconvenient as Chavez Ravine and spend $16 on a beer and $7 on a hot dog.
If there ever was a case for canceling the playoffs and awarding a championship to one team because it was so clearly better than all the others, the 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers would be it.
In this gut-level sense, the 2023 Dodgers season deserves to go down in our collective memory as a special one, regardless of what happens in the playoffs. The rest of the baseball universe will forget the 2023 Dodgers if the team fails to win the World Series, but we in L.A. shouldn’t.
Of course, I have a personal bias. A little more than a year ago, the first person I called after hearing of Vin Scully’s death was my mom. Losing Scully’s voice on the radio, which filled my childhood summers, was like losing a parent.
That was Aug. 2, 2022. My mom, also a lifelong fan who often told me the Dodgers won a World Series the October I was born, died on Aug. 2 this year. One reason I’ll never forget this season.
For everyone else, there are other reasons to remember the 2023 Dodgers even if they make an early exit from the playoffs.
In a city as unwieldy as Los Angeles, you’d have a hard time finding a unifying figure like Vin Scully. He meant so much to so many of us.
We watched Clayton Kershaw pitch his 16th and possibly final season in Los Angeles. At 35, he’s at a point in his career when even Hall of Fame pitchers typically slide into their journeyman years, but Kershaw is still throwing at an elite level. Every time he takes the mound at Dodger Stadium, Kershaw treats Los Angeles to a spectacle of athletic genius on par with Sandy Koufax or LeBron James.
The Dodgers started 2023 with some stumbling blocks. Key contributors to last year’s historic 111-win effort had departed, and the division rival that embarrassed the Dodgers in the playoffs, the San Diego Padres, went on a spending spree and added multiple superstars. Brace for second or third place, we were warned.
Though it didn’t turn out that way in the end, early-season struggles suggested playoff baseball might not be on the horizon. The Dodgers’ pitching staff has been beset by injuries more than any other in baseball, forcing the team to rely on rookies and the most creative management of relief pitchers I’ve ever seen. It didn’t go well at first; now, the Dodgers have run away with another division title on the backs of young starters and relievers. This has been remarkable to watch.
A few fan favorites who got away came back. The beloved Justin Turner may no longer be in Dodger blue, but Joe Kelly and Kiké Hernandez have been since they returned to Los Angeles in midseason trades. Moves like these make fans feel as if they’re rooting for a team, not just a brand.
Of course, nothing caps a year like a World Series victory, the ultimate catharsis after a 162-game slog. But what truly tests a team’s strength is success in a regular season that spans six months of day-in, day-out baseball.
So, before Dodger fans embark on a collective freak-out over playoff baseball, let’s enjoy a few days of peace to acknowledge how inspiring it’s been watching a team of future Hall of Famers and untested rookies figure out new ways to win.
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