Los Angeles is known for celebrities, movie stars and for having to wait in traffic for 13 hours just to get home from work. The city is also known for its baseball, specifically the Dodgers, who have shown the baseball world once again that they are the team to beat.
After sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers in this year’s National League Championship Series, L.A. is headed back to the World Series for the second year in a row, despite having only the fifth best regular season record in baseball at 93-69.
What stands out so much about this year’s NLCS is what happened during game four. For the last few seasons, Shohei Ohtani, a Japanese baseball prodigy, has pretty much been the face of Japan, the MLB, universe and seemingly everything in between. Even his dog named Decoy is famous. The world simply can’t get enough of Shohei.
Anyways, Ohtani put on a two-way clinic during game four. For those unfamiliar with the term, a player is considered “two-way” if they can pitch and hit.
Ohtani did both during game four, tallying 10 strikeouts through six innings and hitting three home runs in the same game. This historic effort gave the Dodgers a 5-1 win.
My dad referred to this performance as “little league stuff.”
Let’s pause. Pitchers are dedicated to pitching and hitters are dedicated to hitting. In theory, you shouldn’t be able to do both professionally, unless, to reference my dad, you’re in little league.
How is it possible that one player dominated both sides of the game during a championship series?
I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a challenge for both teams, so Shohei needs to make next year’s NLCS a little more competitive so Manfred can get more television ratings. Also, the Brewers making fun of Chicago by holding up the “L” flag after their NLDS win really aged well, didn’t it?
Even though he’s the best player of my generation, Ohtani isn’t the only special thing surrounding this team. The Dodgers’ franchise ace, Clayton Kershaw, will be retiring after this season and has already dug up the pitching mound from Dodger Stadium with his family for him to take as a momento of his career. This was a powerful moment for baseball.
Back in July, Kershaw became the 20th pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,000 career strikeouts and has a career ERA of 2.53 as of right now.
What also makes Kershaw special is his faith, which he displays openly. In mid-June of this season, the Dodgers hosted a pride night at Dodger Stadium and made all the players wear the classic blue Dodgers cap with an altered, rainbow L.A. logo on the front.
Kershaw wore the hat but wrote “Genesis 9:12-16” on the front of his hat. For context, this Bible passage is God explaining the meaning of the rainbow, which is supposed to be a sign of his covenant with the whole world that He will never flood the earth again.
The day after this year’s pride night game, Fox News recalled one of Kershaw’s previous quotes from 2023 that called out the Sisters of Indulgence group, who was a part of that season’s pride night game.
Fox News also reported that Kershaw’s “opposition was based solely on the group’s (Sisters of Indulgence) mockery of Christianity.”
“I don’t agree with making fun of other people’s religions,” Kershaw said.
Regardless of your political stance on the issue, nothing can touch the legacy that Kershaw has left on the league and him showing his true character through his faith only adds to this legacy, just in a different way.
Now, let’s look at previous Dodger teams. One of their worst groups played in 1992, finishing the regular season with a 63-99 regular season record. On a larger scale, from 1975 to 2016, L.A. never won 100 games in a season.
During this roughly 40 year period, the team won the World Series twice but lost in the playoffs and world series a combined 14 times. In 2020, L.A. hadn’t won a world series since 1988, which again feels impossible, considering we’re talking about the world famous Dodgers.
However, the World Series trophy returned to the team during the COVID-19 season, ending the championship drought.
This year’s team feels different, packed with red-hot arms from the States and Japan. Also, they have the hitting abilities of a custom team I would make on MLB The Show.
Taylor sophomore and Dodgers fan Nathan Meister highlighted the strong performance of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani in their pitching and he is confident in his team heading into the World Series.
If I’m being honest, I don’t know if there’s ever been a team quite like the 2025 Dodgers.
