A cool 100 mph is attainable for a number of members of a gifted pitching workers that figures to be the important thing for reaching a triple digit of a unique form because the season strikes towards its completion.
The MLB document for group wins in a daily season is 116 and was achieved twice, though neither of these groups grabbed the last word prize.
Already in 2025, the Dodgers have proven that attending to 116 wins and past is nicely inside attain.
The Dodgers opened their season with a pair of wins on two totally different continents, bettering to 4-0 at first of a season for the primary time since 1981, once they received the World Sequence.
The final time a membership received 116 video games in a daily season was in 2001, when the Seattle Mariners hit rarefied air. The one different time it occurred was in 1906, when the Chicago Cubs pulled off the feat whereas enjoying simply 152 video games of their 154-game common season.
For each, the regular-season achievement was pretty much as good as it might get. The Mariners misplaced within the American League Championship Sequence in 2001, whereas the Cubs misplaced the 1906 World Sequence.
For this yr’s Dodgers, changing into the primary group to achieve 117 wins would merely be a facet notice, even with the historical past connected. Being the primary group to win back-to-back titles since 2000 is the goal.
There are an abundance of the reason why repeating is so onerous, however prevailing sentiment is that the starvation to dig slightly deeper subsides. It’s pure. One other intuition is to go on the defensive as champion as an alternative of taking cost.
Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts moved to handle the latter idea in a group assembly when the group arrived at spring coaching. Be the hunter, Roberts pressured to his group, not the hunted.
Gamers have elected to make 2025 an extension of 2024, once they used their downtime between the common season and the beginning of their playoff run to collect at Dodger Stadium for lengthy hours every day.
There was work on the sector going down, however the group took it a step additional by having catered lunches and dinners as a bunch every day. The thought was to emphasize that the highway forward can be a shared expertise, not a person one.
And whereas the San Diego Padres almost derailed the Dodgers’ path within the Nationwide League Division Sequence by forcing their rival to win two consecutive video games or go dwelling, it was a mutual belief that received Los Angeles to its aim.
Whereas it’s a simplified model of occasions, the Dodgers imagine their bonding week earlier than final yr’s playoffs made a distinction. By no means underestimate a bunch that believes it’s on to one thing.
What the Dodgers and Roberts had been in a position to do was flip a patchwork pitching workers right into a winner by utilizing simply three starters and a procession of relievers to first get by way of the Padres earlier than dispatching the New York Mets and New York Yankees.
Accidents left Roberts with restricted beginning pitching choices, with the bullpen in a position to step up in a time of want. The Dodgers addressed each areas within the offseason, bringing aboard Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki to bulk up the rotation and Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates to fortify the bullpen.
In some unspecified time in the future this season, the Dodgers might have as many as 10 working starters at their disposal, contemplating that three-time Cy Younger Award winner Clayton Kershaw is predicted to be again by mid-summer, Shohei Ohtani is in line to renew a pitching schedule as early as Could, and All-Star Tony Gonsolin is making his method again quickly. Younger pitchers like Bobby Miller, Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski might get an opportunity or two to start out.
The Dodgers did win as many as 111 video games in 2022 and have hit the century mark 5 occasions within the earlier eight seasons—seven not counting the shortened pandemic season of 2020. The triple digit now of their sights is 117.
“We simply don’t stop,” Roberts mentioned after the Dodgers rallied for an 8-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Friday with 5 runs within the tenth inning. Mookie Betts hit two dwelling runs after he almost missed the collection due to a two-week sickness brought on by a abdomen virus.
“As bleak as it would take a look at occasions, we hold competing and put at-bats collectively,” Roberts mentioned.
Whereas the present season is younger, the championship vitality is obvious. Protecting it by way of one other six months can be a problem, and there are some issues, like a shaky bullpen, however thus far, visitors on the highway to 117 has been gentle.
