The low point came 36 days ago.
During a late-season series in Atlanta, the Dodgers’ division lead was dwindling after a string of frustrating losses. Even worse, they learned Tyler Glasnow would become the latest, and most important, pitcher done for the season because of an injury.
For a brief moment, the team felt that people were “panicking,” as outfielder Teoscar Hernández described it, about their season. For one of the few times in a year full of adversity and unforeseen setbacks, confidence in the clubhouse felt like it was waning.
“The guy who’s supposed to be your ace is dealt a blow and he’s done for the year? That was a kick in the gut,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “Everyone was like, ‘Man, not again. Another injury?’”
So, in an uncharacteristic move for a manager who describes himself as “not a big meeting guy,” Dave Roberts decided to call one, gathering his players before a Sept. 15 game against the Braves to deliver a simple reminder.
“We’re still the Dodgers,” Roberts told the group, as Hernández recalled. “We can do special things.”
Five weeks later, the Dodgers made good on that prediction.
On Sunday night, they returned to the World Series.
With a 10-5 defeat of the New York Mets in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers won the 25th pennant in their storied franchise history. For the fourth time in the last eight years, they will play for a championship that, this season, few outside the team saw coming.
“There’s just a lot of unforeseen things that can happen in a long baseball season,” Roberts said this week, as the club closed in on the fourth World Series trip of his nine-year tenure.
But, as Roberts reminded the group back in September, “We have a lot of good players.”
And reaching the Fall Classic, he implored them, was still well within reach.
“I just felt we had enough talent in the room to do that,” Roberts said, reflecting on the meeting. “But the most important thing was that those guys responded amongst themselves.”
And respond the Dodgers did.
To the litany of starting pitching absences that left their October rotation thin and unsettled. To an ever-changing cast of characters amid their injury-plagued season.
Even the playoffs have brought setbacks, from Freddie Freeman’s sprained…