LA Dodgers: First MLB team to clinch a 2020 postseason berth

For the eighth consecutive year, the LA Dodgers will be making an appearance in the baseball playoffs.

Death, taxes and the LA Dodgers making the playoffs.

If there are any foregone conclusions amidst this world of uncertainty, those three things would certainly qualify.

After defeating the San Diego Padres 7-5 at Petco Park on Wednesday night, the Dodgers ensured that they would once again return to the MLB postseason by clinching their eighth consecutive berth, a enviable streak that now constitutes the third longest of its kind in MLB history.

With a playoff berth officially secured, Los Angeles will now look to lock up its eighth straight NL West division title. As of the writing of this piece, the Dodgers have a 3.5 game lead on the second place Padres.

You read that right, not only have the Dodgers made the playoffs every year since 2013, but they’ve done so by winning the NL West year in and year out.

What’s more, they have won no less than 90 games in all of those seasons (the exception being the pandemic shortened 2020 season). The Dodgers have won 100 or more games twice in the last four seasons (2017 and 2019).

To further illustrate just how incredible the Dodgers have been this decade, only the 1991-2005 Braves (14 years) and the 1995-2007 Yankees (13 years) have had longer playoff streaks than the the boys in Dodger blue.

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It’s a remarkable feat that puts the historic franchise in some rarified air. Yet at the same time, this accomplishment should not come as a surprise to anyone given the way that the organization has masterfully developed homegrown talents and supplemented them with quality veterans to create some of the deepest rosters you’ll find across baseball.

If there is one negative aspect of this amazing run for the Dodgers, it would have to be the lack of World Series titles. Los Angeles has made two World Series appearances (2017 and 2018) during this stretch, and an argument can be made that the Dodgers should have won both of those years.

As we’ve learned, their American League opponents in those series were not at all faithful in coming away with their Commissioner’s Trophies. Dodger fans need no further reminding of those painful memories.

It’s good, then, that 2020 will provide another opportunity to put an end to the organization’s title drought, which now stands at 31 years (2020 is not over yet, so we won’t say 32).

After adding Mookie Betts to an already stacked lineup, and pairing that group with a pitching staff that has two aces in Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw, as well as with a bullpen that has relievers with lights out stuff like Brusdar Graterol and Kenley Jansen, never before have the Dodgers been more equipped to make a run at that ever so elusive title.

Perhaps most valuable of all, this group has continuity and experience on their side. Most of these players have been battle tested in the playoffs. Many of them were part of the two consecutive World Series heartbreaks in 2017 and 2018. Others have played in Fall Classics with other teams, such as Betts with the Boston Red Sox and reliever Joe Kelly, also with the Red Sox.

However you look at it, the Dodgers might be the most experienced squad in all of baseball heading into the most important games of the season. With an NL postseason bracket that may feature multiple playoff newcomers such as the Phillies, Marlins, Reds and even the rival SF Giants, that experience could serve the Dodgers quite nicely in the pressure cooker environment that is playoff baseball.

October baseball is a tradition as old as time. With the playoff streak that the Dodgers have maintained since 2013, it might be time to start calling that a tradition as well.