The narrative should have been obvious.
A season ago, the Dodgers were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League Division Series, marking a stunningly short postseason run for their 100-win team.
This week, the sides met at Chase Field for the first time since.
For most clubs in the Dodgers’ position, bad blood would accompany the return trip to the scene of the crime.
Leading up to this series, however, the Dodgers didn’t just downplay the significance of their rematch with the Dbacks, who rode the momentum of their Dodgers upset all the way to the World Series.
Instead, even after taking the three-game series with an 8-0 blowout win Wednesday night, the Dodgers outright rejected the notion of this being any sort of #RevengeSeries.
They weren’t looking for payback. They weren’t trying to get even.
Sure, a win over a division rival felt nice.
But beating these Diamondbacks did little to fix what went wrong last year.
“I don’t look at it as, every team that beat us, we gotta get revenge on them,” manager Dave Roberts explained.
“Over the years, when we’ve lost a playoff series, it’s more about how we’ve played,” Roberts added. “So I just really wholeheartedly believe it’s about you, what we’re doing. That’s most important.”
This has been a common occurrence for the Dodgers during Roberts’ tenure with the club.
Outside of a lone 2020 title, their recent postseason frustrations have been directed more internally than at their October opponents. When they’ve bowed out of the playoffs earlier than expected, their fatal flaws have always felt self-inflicted.
“I think we have turned the page,” Roberts said of last year’s NLDS. “It was a great series by those guys last year. And part of it is learning from it, remembering the feeling that you had. But most importantly is moving forward. And I think our guys have done a good job of looking forward, and playing some good baseball.”
That much continued Wednesday night, when the Dodgers (20-13) tagged Arizona’s marquee offseason signing, Jordan Montgomery, with six runs in the first three innings en route to their seventh win on this nine-game road trip.
Mookie Betts led the way with three hits and two RBIs, maintaining the best batting average in the majors at .377. Andy Pages and Will Smith hit home runs, providing more than enough power on a night Shohei Ohtani got a scheduled day of rest.
And, in perhaps the most impressive performance of the night, starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched six scoreless innings with five strikeouts and five hits.
With the victory, the Dodgers (20-13) concluded their nine-game road trip with a 7-2 record, and moved 5½ games clear of the fourth-place Diamondbacks (14-18) in the NL West standings.
If you thought that feat would be extra sweet for the club given last year’s postseason result, however, think again.
“I don’t think any of us thought of that,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said entering the series. “I guess you could say that against the Padres too, every time we play them?”
Indeed, just as the Dodgers believed they were a better team than the 84-win Diamondbacks last year, they felt the same about the 89-win San Diego Padres in 2022, the 88-win Atlanta Braves in 2021 and the 93-win Washington Nationals in 2019 — all seasons the Dodgers won more than 100 regular-season games.
Each of those series, they expected to win.
And each time they lost, their anger was directed more internally, bemoaning everything they did wrong — from poor situational hitting to a lack of dominant starting pitching — just as much as what their opponents did right.
That’s why the Dodgers’ only real chance to ever earn redemption is in the narrow window of postseason baseball; why, when other clubs would be reliving past failures in search of revenge, Roberts declared he and his club are “not even going to go there.”
“I don’t think it’s beneficial for us,” Roberts added. “For my mind, my mental health.”
Instead, the Dodgers could take solace in the improvements this year’s team — one that includes “the least amount of carryover from the previous year” as he could remember — continued to display this week.
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