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 type because the season strikes towards its completion.
The MLB report for workforce wins in a daily season is 116 and was achieved twice, though neither of these groups grabbed the final 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 completely different continents, bettering to 4-0 at first of a season for the primary time since 1981, once they gained the World Sequence.
The final time a membership gained 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 could get. The Mariners misplaced within the American League Championship Sequence in 2001, whereas the Cubs misplaced the 1906 World Sequence.
For this 12 months’s Dodgers, changing into the primary workforce to achieve 117 wins would merely be a facet observe, even with the historical past hooked up. Being the primary workforce to win back-to-back titles since 2000 is the purpose.
There are an abundance of explanation why repeating is so exhausting, however prevailing sentiment is that the starvation to dig a little bit 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 deal with the latter idea in a workforce assembly when the workforce arrived at spring coaching. Be the hunter, Roberts confused to his workforce, 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 workforce took it a step additional by having catered lunches and dinners as a gaggle every day. The thought was to emphasize that the street forward could be a shared expertise, not a person one.
And whereas the San Diego Padres practically derailed the Dodgers’ path within the Nationwide League Division Sequence by forcing their rival to win two consecutive video games or go residence, it was a mutual belief that bought Los Angeles to its purpose.
Whereas it’s a simplified model of occasions, the Dodgers consider their bonding week earlier than final 12 months’s playoffs made a distinction. By no means underestimate a gaggle that believes it’s on to one thing.
What the Dodgers and Roberts had been capable of do was flip a patchwork pitching workers right into a winner through the use of simply three starters and a procession of relievers to first get by the Padres earlier than dispatching the New York Mets and New York Yankees.
Accidents left Roberts with restricted beginning pitching choices, with the bullpen capable of 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.
Sooner or later this season, the Dodgers may have as many as 10 working starters at their disposal, contemplating that three-time Cy Younger Award winner Clayton Kershaw is anticipated to be again by mid-summer, Shohei Ohtani is in line to renew a pitching schedule as early as Might, and All-Star Tony Gonsolin is making his manner again quickly. Younger pitchers like Bobby Miller, Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski may get an opportunity or two to begin.
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 stated 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 residence runs after he practically missed the collection due to a two-week sickness attributable to a abdomen virus.
“As bleak as it’d take a look at occasions, we preserve competing and put at-bats collectively,” Roberts stated.
Whereas the present season is younger, the championship power is clear. Retaining it by one other six months will probably be a problem, and there are some issues, like a shaky bullpen, however to this point, visitors on the street to 117 has been mild.
