The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently on a pace that makes most of baseball look like they are playing a different sport. At 55-30, they own the best record in the majors. They have won six of their last seven games. And they are not just beating teams. They are burying them.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale posted on X that the Dodgers now have a magic number of 67. That is not a typo. He pointed out that L.A. has outscored its opponents by 157 runs this season. The rest of the NL West has a combined run differential of minus-187. Every single team in the division is underwater. And the Dodgers have an 11-game lead.
Normally, you do not start talking about magic numbers until September. But this is not a normal team. The 1975 Cincinnati Reds were the first team to clinch a playoff spot in a 162-game season, doing it on September 7. Since 2012, the earliest clinch dates belong to the 2019 Dodgers and the 2017 Nationals, both on September 10. The Dodgers are on track to beat that.
FanGraphs gives the Dodgers a 99.8 percent chance to win the NL West. They project the Padres to win just 81 games. If you do the math on the Dodgers current win rate, they would reach 81 wins around August 26. That does not mean they will clinch that day. But it means they could have the division locked up before Labor Day.
That is a very real possibility. And it would be historic. No team has clinched a playoff berth in August since the 1998 Yankees. That team won 114 games and a World Series. The Dodgers are not quite on that pace, but they are close enough that people are starting to pay attention.
The Dodgers face the Athletics on Tuesday night. Then they host the Padres for four games over the weekend. That series could either pad the lead or give San Diego a sliver of hope. But given the way L.A. is playing, it feels more like a formality.
The Dodgers are on pace to make history. And Bob Nightengale is already counting.
Leave a Comment