The Dodger’s 2022 season is going to be among the infamous cases of a record-breaking team not winning the world series – the absolutely most infamous season being the Seattle Mariners in 2001.
The Dodgers had six starter pitchers, but that was not the case throughout the whole season. The starter pitcher who started the fewest games at twelve was Walker Buehler. He became injured in June and underwent Tommy John Surgery, which is elbow surgery that ended his season.
What was very impressive was that the Dodgers were down one starting pitcher – and everyone else stepped up their performance in response. The team managed the impressive feat of winning 111 games in the season. They had a great lineup of hitters – and the universal designated hitter, or someone who hits in the lineup for the pitcher, really helped benefit the team. Since the Dodgers ended the season with most players healthy and a great squad of players, it would make sense to expect the exceptional team to win it all.
As the postseason started, the Padres beat the New York Mets in Wild Card. The Dodgers were set to face the Padres in the National League Division Series. No one expected what happened: the Dodgers, this seemingly unstoppable force, was stopped. The Dodgers lost to the Padres.
The Padres won for a few reasons, the first being that they played the Wild Card. They played that series because they had a worse record than the Dodgers’ 111 wins.
There was a six-day long rest that the Dodgers had from the last day of the season and the first game of the NLDS. Meanwhile, the Padres played three games over that time. The Dodgers’ rest meant that they might not have been as ready as they needed to be compared to the Padres. Some argue that the rest, on the other hand, might have been a good thing. Rest may have allowed the players to get a break from playing.
The second reason why the Padres might have won is that the Dodgers did not hit that well. Baseball games are won by the team that accumulates the most runs by making contact with the ball. The Dodgers did not hit the ball well, so they could not win the game.
Throughout the regular season, there are 162 games, and the Dodgers won a little over 68% of theirs. In the postseason, the games were fewer in number – so the Dodgers were eliminated in a five-game series that was first to three wins. The Padres had won three games and the Dodgers had only won one game. Therefore, the percentage that they won was 25% of the postseason games. Anyone can win 111 games in a 162-game season – but not everyone can win when it matters in the postseason.
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