PHOENIX — Welcome to chaos in the National League West, where franchise history is short-lived, leads are, too, and yet — once again — the Los Angeles Dodgers are finding separation in the division as the calendar flips to September.
Little has seemed logical for these Dodgers since they returned this weekend to Chase Field, the site of last October’s disappointment and a rejuvenated environment from what, in years past, was a sea of blue in the empty warehouse. They lost Clayton Kershaw after just one inning Friday with a bone spur in his left big toe and rode a bullpen on fumes to an unlikely victory. They teed off against Arizona Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly on Saturday, making history for the 141-year-old franchise by slugging three consecutive home runs to lead off the game — only to cough up their early advantage before rookie starter Gavin Stone could record an out in the first inning. Their fried pitching staff gave up their advantage thrice, yet they still managed to hold on for an 8-6 win on Tommy Edman’s go-ahead two-run single with two outs in the ninth.
They’ve won in preposterous fashion on consecutive nights. Little has been normal. The intrigue surrounding this race entering the season’s final month has bled onto the field.
“It’s just a brawl,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It really is. All these teams we play within the division, it’s an all-out brawl.”
Their lead is now six games. The margin hasn’t been this wide since July 28. It took just about everything.
Their pitching was worn thin for consecutive nights, reaching down to their penultimate available arm Friday night and leaving Evan Phillips alone in the ninth Saturday night as the last man standing. The baseball has been enthralling and heart-stopping.
“This,” Miguel Rojas said, “is really important for us to have.”
TOMMY! pic.twitter.com/pg3gNA6NhV
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 1, 2024
The feeling of the Diamondbacks and Padres nipping at their heels, they say, has made them better after coasting into the postseason each of the last two seasons.
“It’s bringing out the best in us,” Roberts said.
“I feel like our entire season has been good for us,” Phillips said. “You could say the past couple years where we’ve had these bigger leads in the division and celebrating early and things like that, it didn’t do us any favors in the postseason. So fighting this kind of adversity throughout many points throughout the year I think has been good for our guys.”
The luxury of a billion dollars’ worth of superstars has often made itself clear even for a Dodgers club that might not win 100 games. Few stretches were as explosive as the sequence that opened Saturday night’s action. Shohei Ohtani drove a full-count curveball well out and over the porch in center field for a leadoff blast. Mookie Betts followed by driving the second pitch he saw over the left-field fence. Freddie Freeman then smoked the first pitch he saw, clearing the pool in right-center as the Dodgers’ triumvirate of MVPs became the first trio since the franchise started in 1883 to open a game with back-to-back-to-back home runs.
It’s a cushion the Dodgers would have begged for Saturday, a night when they knew they’d have only three relievers available — Brent Honeywell (fresh back from the minors), Ben Casparius (yet to make his big-league debut) and Phillips (who would be working for the third time in four nights) behind rookie Stone.
The cushion lasted four hitters. Corbin Carroll lofted a fly ball that caromed off the center-field wall and past Kevin Kiermaier, and he scored in just 14.30 seconds, standing up for an inside-the-park homer. Jake McCarthy ripped a single. Joc Pederson singled. Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s double scooted past Teoscar Hernández in left field to knot things up before Stone could record so much as an out. A pitching-starved club finished its historic first inning down a run.
“After you see something really special happen, those three homers kind of put you on top of the world,” Rojas said. “Then all of a sudden, you’re fighting back already.”
The game would be knotted or the lead would be exchanged five more times as the Dodgers stretched themselves as thin as they could go.
“Those guys gave us all we could handle,” Roberts said.
Stone got through five innings before he was “tapped out,” Roberts said — a byproduct of not throwing more than 90 pitches in a start since July 26, the stress of the early frames and a career-most workload in his first full major-league season. Honeywell, activated to give the Dodgers a fresh arm (with Joe Kelly going on the injured list with shoulder inflammation), provided two innings, giving up the one-run lead he was given but keeping things knotted. Casparius, a starter by trade, debuted in a tie game in the eighth.
And when the Dodgers finally broke through — after coming out of a bases-loaded rally in the seventh and having the first two reach safely in the eighth without a single run coming across, Edman lofted a two-out single against hard-throwing reliever Justin Martinez — it left Roberts to deploy his final available arm with no one left behind Phillips.
“At some point, you just got to have your chips all in,” Roberts said.
Phillips was the lone arm that went unused in Friday night’s marathon. The resurgent leverage arm completed a scoreless ninth and let out a roar of relief.
“Watching each guy step up just makes you want to be a part of it,” Phillips said. “I was super happy just to get my piece of it.”
The Dodgers are appearing to grab their piece of the division. Their odds of winning the division sit at 94.6 percent, according to FanGraphs. More encouraging than any statistical formula: how they managed to finagle their way through the last couple of nights. It’s not a formula any club should want to repeat. But it’s shown something in these Dodgers.
“This team is just relentless,” Edman said.
It also has its biggest lead in a month.
“Hopefully, we run away with the division in September, but at the same time, I want this team to kind of face these games,” Rojas said. “This way, we’ll know how to win these one-run games, tight games, not to have anything to do before we go to October.”
(Photo of Shohei Ohtani receiving congratulations from Freddie Freeman after starting Saturday’s game with a homer: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
