Milwaukee Brewers have no chance.
Neither are the Seattle Mariners or the Toronto Blue Jays.
A clear truth emerged from the shadows of Dodger Stadium late Thursday amid a roar of delight and disbelief that shook the downtown area.
This is funny. It's just funny how good it is Dodgers play, how close the history books beckon, and how an ordinary summer was followed by incredible days of extraordinary events.
The Dodgers won't lose another game this October. Write this down, get ready: No major league baseball team has ever played this well in the postseason, ever, ever, ever.
WITH their victory with a score of 3-1 over the Brewers on Thursday in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers lead three games to none, with a win likely within the next 24 hours and a coronation within the next two weeks.
The Dodgers are going to win this NLCS and will follow it up with a four-game whitewash. World Series because, well, you tell me.
How is anyone going to beat them?
Does it match their ace-flush rotation? Nope. Equal their hot bonding and a revived bullpen? Sorry. Better than their deep lineup? No one is even close.
The Dodgers are more than halfway through the most dominant postseason in baseball history, and it's all in the numbers.
The only team to go undefeated in the playoffs since the division era began was the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. But the Big Machine only needed to win seven games. As the playoffs were expanded and the challenges became tougher, the biggest October streaks came from the 2005 Chicago White Sox and 1999 New York Yankees, both of whom went 11–1.
These Dodgers were forced that early wildcard seriesso if they finish this postseason without another loss, they will finish at 13-1.
The last time a team in this city displayed such postseason dominance was when the 2001 champion Lakers went 15-1 in the postseason, losing only once to Philadelphia on a night when Allen Iverson famously stepped over Tyronn Lue.
These Lakers were legendary. These Dodgers will be here soon.
They are currently 8-1 in the playoffs and have won 23 of their previous 29 games, and again, who will beat them?
Start with this rotation. Tyler Glasnow followed the gems of Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Thursday with 5 ⅔ innings of swing and miss, holding the Brewers to one run with eight strikeouts, and in three games the Brewers scored two runs in 22 ⅔ innings against Dodger starters.
And perhaps their best pitcher hasn't even taken the mound yet, as it's a Friday start. Shohei Ohtani.
Now about their deep composition. Ohtani is still in the midst of the worst slump of his career, but his only hit Thursday was a leadoff triple that scored his first run, and everyone else seemed to contribute. Mookie Betts had his first RBI, Tommy Edman knocked out Will Smith with the go-ahead run in the sixth, hustling Freddie Freeman scored on a wild pickoff attempt, and on and on.
Finish with their bullpen, which is essentially running low. Taking over Glasnow's role with one runner on first and two out in the sixth Thursday, Alex Vecia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and Rocky Sasaki shut down the Brewers the rest of the way, and their regular-season weakness became their strength.
Incidentally, Sasaki's shutout in the ninth inning was aided by a brilliant hit into the hole by shortstop Betts, which is another way the Dodgers can beat you.
All this, and as Thursday confirmed, they have arguably the best home field advantage in baseball.
There is no more room. No place attracts more fans. And it doesn't get any louder, from the roar of the grandstand to the cover-your-ears sound system.
“This place has an aura,” said Max Muncy of Dodger Stadium. “It's the biggest capacity in baseball. Everybody talks about it when you come here. The lights seem a little brighter. The music seems a little louder—maybe it's actually because it's a little louder.”
Yes fans you can hate otherworldly stadium volumebut the players love it.
“That’s part of the benefit of being at Dodger Stadium, we have that sound system,” Muncy said. “It sounds silly to say that something like a sound system can be an advantage. But it really is. When the speakers in center field are blasting, the crowd goes crazy and you feel the field shaking under your feet, that's a really big advantage. And that's what we've always had.”
On Thursday, the stadium performed as well as it always does at this time of year: it was full despite the odd midday start time, and by the end of the game there was constant standing and screaming.
“When we have big moments like this, there's probably no place that can be louder than Dodger Stadium, especially in the postseason,” Muncy said. “When you have 56, 57,000 people screaming at the same time at a big moment, it's pretty wild. It's an advantage we've always had and the guys love it.”
There's a lot to love.
