Dodgers open series against Padres eager to ‘move forward’ from playoff failure
Dave Roberts immediately recognized the feeling.
The first time the Dodgers manager watched the viral video of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s news conference answer about the nature of “failure” last week — when the Milwaukee Bucks star considered the meaning of the word in the wake of his team’s shocking first-round postseason elimination — Roberts couldn’t help but relate.
To the way Antetokounmpo rubbed his hands in his head, visually grappling with the dichotomy of a great regular season that ultimately featured just a lone playoff win.
To how the NBA icon tried to compartmentalize the accomplishments of his team’s overall performance, against the fact they’d fallen woefully short of their ultimate goal.
To the exasperation present in Antetokounmpo’s voice, straining as he tried to reframe his club’s early exit not as an outright failure, but one of the many painful “steps to success” that sometimes feel inevitable in team sports.
The Dodgers and the San Diego Padres play for the first time since their meeting in last season’s postseason matchup. What will we see from the two teams?
“In sports, you get used to that,” Roberts said. “Because there’s only one champion every year. So our DNA is to be able to sustain that, and continue to move forward.”
Roberts would know better than most.
Six months earlier, on a rainy October night in San Diego, his team was in an eerily similar position.
Their own record-breaking, 111-win regular season had ended in stunning — and early — fashion at the hands of the Padres in a National League Division Series.
And just like Antetokounmpo and the Bucks, they too had to grapple with the meaning of “failure” in the wake of their latest, and most pronounced, postseason disappointment.
“People that are gonna say it was a failure, they haven’t gone through what we’re going through,” Roberts said this week, ahead of the Dodgers’ first rematch with the Padres since last year’s NLDS. “That’s what’s different in sports than anything else. It just takes a certain psyche to be able to handle that.”
And six months later, that’s the emotion that, for many in the Dodgers clubhouse, lingers most going into this weekend’s series at Petco Park.
Not animosity for the Padres. Not a preoccupation with their budding rivalry. But a lingering discontent with themselves, and the narrative of failure that still surrounds the way their 2022 season ended.
“Ultimately, the goal is to win, so if you didn’t accomplish that, that’s a failure,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “But I think along the [way], you can accomplish so much, and you can have so many successes and other things that’s not a failure. So for me, it’s a two-part thing.”
Muncy pointed to the Dodgers’ regular season triumphs last year, when they led the league in scoring, runs against and became just the seventh team in MLB history with 110 or more wins.
“To me, that’s not a failure,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we didn’t win the World Series. So I understand both sides of that.”
When reflecting on last year’s NLDS specifically, Muncy’s biggest regret had less to do with the opponent, and more about “how we lost” the best-of-five series in four games, “having the other team play with more energy, almost like they were hungrier for it than we were,” he said.
“When you lose in that sort of fashion, I think that stings a lot more than just being outplayed,” Muncy continued, echoing a sentiment that was shared by Roberts and others in the wake of the Dodgers elimination. “Obviously, everyone is gonna say they outplayed us, and that’s probably true. But to me, it was more, they just brought so much more energy and were so much hungrier for it.”
Muncy’s hope is the Dodgers will be better for it.
The Dodgers are running a baseball academy in central Uganda that few people outside the country know about, and it’s starting to turn out pro players.
“I think we learned that lesson that, you have to learn how to play with emotion,” he said. “During the regular season, we’ve always been so successful because we stay level-headed throughout the entire thing. You can’t play 162 with emotion. But, when we reach the playoffs, we have trouble flipping that switch.”
First baseman Freddie Freeman added another viewpoint this week.
He pragmatically noted the Dodgers situational hitting woes last October, an unforeseen issue after the team excelled in such spots during the regular season.
“What can you learn? I mean, I learned we needed to get some hits with runners in scoring position,” Freeman deadpanned. “I could give you cliches, but to be honest, baseball is different … You just got to get it done. And if you can’t get it done, you’ll have the same result. That’s just how it is, until one year everything kind of magically works together and you win.”
And did the Dodgers inability to do so last year constitute a failure?
“I don’t say it’s a failure,” he said. “You just didn’t achieve what you wanted to achieve, and then you start over again.”
Yes, the Dodgers have won six in a row, but that doesn’t mask the issues they have with their rotation, their bullpen and their defense.
After restarting slowly this year, the Dodgers found a groove over the last week.
They’ve won six games in a row. They’ve taken an early lead in the NL West. And during a 6-0 homestand, they showed flashes of the kind of contender they believe they are.
“It’s really starting to come together,” Muncy said.
That’s why, while this weekend might represent a slightly more significant step — the team even realigned its starting rotation to have top starters Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Julio Urías all pitch against the Padres — their long-term goals will take more time.
They’re still trying to rectify their frustrations from the way last year ended. To erase the label of failure they carried into this new season.
“I say it all the time,” Muncy said, putting the importance of the Padres rivalry into perspective. “You’re almost playing yourself more than the opponent.”
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