Pure grit: The Dodgers' division clincher mirrors a season of battling back

Today at 02:21 AM

by Cary Osborne

This has not been the locomotive, the 100-win juggernaut, the behemoth. This has been a different Dodger team in 2024.

They've had to grind to get to game 159.

And so they grinded again, through six innings of nothing on the offensive side Thursday night against the Padres and veteran starting pitcher Joe Musgrove.

The Dodgers trailed by two runs in the bottom of the seventh. Then the guys who have been there before — members of past regular-season behemoth teams — started to show.

Max Muncy was down in the count 1–2. But he grinded, not biting on Musgrove's attempts to get the playoff veteran and third baseman to swing on pitches along the edges.

Muncy walked.

Playoff veteran catcher Will Smith then tied the score with a two-run home run on a 3–1 pitch.

The line kept moving — getting to the one who has never played a postseason game in his seven-season career to the plate. Shohei Ohtani — the National League MVP favorite — drove in the go-ahead run with a single.

And finally, superstar Mookie Betts — who had struggled in the three-game series — poked a two-run single into right field.

The fighting Dodgers defeated the Padres 7–2 on Thursday at Dodger Stadium. They are the National League West champions for the 11th time in 12 seasons.

"It encapsulates our entire season," said manager Dave Roberts of the game. "All the adversity we've been through, just grinding and willing ourselves to victory, and we've done that 90-something times this year, which led to a division title. So proud of these guys."

The Dodgers own the best record in the Majors at 95–64 and have three games left in the season at Colorado to keep it and grab home-field advantage throughout the postseason. They will begin the postseason by bypassing the Wild Card series and opening up at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 5 in the National League Division Series.

They've already won one playoff-like series by taking two out of three from the Padres over the last three games to clinch the division title. They did it the hard way — losing the first game, then winning the last two in come-from-behind fashion.

"That's kind of how you look at it when you want to clinch the division. The way we played the baseball game tonight was pretty pure," Freddie Freeman said.

True to form, in a season of team adversity, Freeman and the Dodgers have more. He turned his right ankle in the seventh inning.

He took an X-ray, and it was negative.

"They said once we get the fluid out, (the doctor) said once I put weight on it and move around, I should be able to go by Saturday," Freeman said. "Fortunate enough that we've got some time off now to heal this thing. So I'm optimistic."

The Dodgers added two more runs in the eighth inning on an Andy Pages home run to set the score at 7–2.

Ohtani went 3-for-5 with a run scored, tying Freddie Freeman's single-season runs record (2023) of 131. Ohtani now has 400 total bases, becoming the second Dodger to reach at least 400. Babe Herman had 416 in 1930.

Most important for Ohtani, he has the first division title of his seven-year Major League career.

"It was an awesome feeling, and I'm hoping to continue being able to pop more champagne," Ohtani said.

Walker Buehler, meanwhile, started and allowed one run over five innings.

It's been a grind for him as well this season. The former ace who won Game 163 in 2018 and was a postseason buzzsaw in 2020, has spent a season trying to find his former self, even expressing some self-doubt during the season.

He found him.

Big-game Buehler gave the Dodgers arguably his best start of the season in his final start of the regular season.

"I can't say enough about Walker," Roberts said. "He put us in a position to win a championship."

Again.

Buehler was the starting pitcher the last time the Dodgers clinched the NL West at Dodger Stadium — in Game 163 in 2018.

Pure grit: The Dodgers' division clincher mirrors a season of battling back was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.