When the season began, people joked about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ roster as if everything was preordained. Would they win 120 regular-season games? 125? Would they go undefeated?
It appeared they might after the first week or so of the season, but the Dodgers ran into some obstacles. One of their superstars looked unlike himself, first physically and then his production at the plate. The injuries to starting pitchers mounted. The bullpen wasn’t trustworthy. But ultimately, this was a team that marked October as the time to peak, and a classic World Series challenged them to reach new heights on the first day of November.
And here are key moments that paved the way to L.A.’s ultimate triumph.
March 5: Mookie Betts returns to the position that made him feel “embarrassed” a year earlier
Betts wasn’t just one of the best players in the game for several years; he was also one of the league’s top defensive right fielders. When, out of necessity, he agreed to play shortstop just two weeks before Opening Day in 2024, he became mentally exhausted as he tried to get up to speed at a position he had only played in 31 professional games. “For me to go and be embarrassed on a baseball field, it took a lot, man,” Betts said.
He spent hours before games trying to prepare to play one of the game’s most difficult defensive positions, and then he broke his hand in June 2024. When he returned, he was back in right field and the Dodgers went on to win the World Series. Fast forward to spring training 2025, and Betts was back at shortstop. With more time to prepare, would this time be different?
March 17: The Dodgers’ world tour starts in Japan
Two years after watching Japan win the World Baseball Classic, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman traveled with his team to Japan with three Japanese stars after landing Roki Sasaki to a team that already included Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
“This is the golden age (of Japanese baseball),” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who was born in Okinawa and is the first Asian-born manager to win a World Series. “I think it’s going to spur (many) more people to want Japanese players to come over here.” The talent in Japan is undeniable. More players are coming. And when they do, expect the Dodgers to be in the mix.
March 28: After losing 20 pounds, Mookie has his moment
Betts left early from the team’s Japan trip due to symptoms of a virus he’d felt since before the trip even began. He was vomiting regularly and unable to keep solid foods down for more than a week, requiring an IV bag while at the Tokyo Dome and a diet of smoothies for sustenance while he continued to work out. His availability for the first series at Dodger Stadium was in doubt, but he ate as much food as he could — and still only gained back half the weight he had lost, which meant he started the season at just 165 pounds. But in a back-and-forth game against the Detroit Tigers, Betts golfed the eighth pitch of his 10th-inning at-bat, a changeup from Beau Brieski, into the seats.
May 9: Shohei saves them
After their second winning streak of at least seven games, the Dodgers alternated wins and losses before facing the Arizona Diamondbacks in the second game of a series in Phoenix. The D-Backs were thought to be a team on the rise, with a strong young core bolstered by the surprising addition of Corbin Burnes.
Sasaki allowed five earned runs over four innings with no strikeouts in his last appearance on a major-league mound until Sept. 24. The Dodgers trailed 11-8 heading into the ninth inning. The juggernaut was starting to look a little shaky. L.A. rallied with four straight hits to tie it, then after Michael Conforto got hit by a pitch, Ohtani walked up with two runners on and crushed a homer to deep right to give the Dodgers a 14-11 win. “I played with Barry (Bonds),” Roberts said. “But what Shohei does in the clutch — I’ve never seen anything like what he does in the clutch.”
June 16: Oh yeah, Ohtani pitches too
Ohtani had last pitched on Aug. 23, 2023, as a member of the Angels. Since then, he had undergone an elbow procedure, produced the first 50-50 season in history and injured his shoulder in his first World Series while trying to steal second. Some wondered if Ohtani should just stick to hitting, but Ohtani thought no such thing.
The Dodgers can’t exactly go against his wishes, not after he deferred most of his $700 million contract and produced wins and untold sums of money since switching teams and leagues. The Dodgers went slowly with Ohtani, who needed to do his arm work on the side because he wasn’t going to go on a minor-league rehab assignment. The final line wasn’t that impressive in his Dodgers pitching debut (two hits and an unearned run allowed in the first inning). But the way his stuff looked, with a fastball that sat 99 mph and went over 100 mph more than once, along with the fact that he led off in the bottom of the inning, showed the Dodgers once again what a physical marvel he is.
July 2: CK3K
Clayton Kershaw’s sustained brilliance may have gotten overshadowed by everything that’s happened with the Dodgers over recent years, but he brought the spotlight back onto himself when he recorded his 3,000th strikeout. Fewer pitchers (19) have reached that milestone than those who have won 300 games (24).
Kershaw became the fourth to do it while pitching left-handed, joining Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson and CC Sabathia. Only Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson and Kershaw got there exclusively with one club. And with the way starting pitchers have had their pitch counts and total innings monitored, we might not see many get to 3,000 again after Kershaw. “It kind of shows you exactly what’s missing in the game,” said Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman. “That’s true horses, true aces. They’re really hard to find and don’t come around very often.”
Sept. 6: Rock bottom
Yamamoto was one out away from a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles until Jackson Holliday poked one over the right-field wall. No problem, the Dodgers still led 3-1. Then Blake Treinen gave up a double, a hit-by-pitch and a walk before Tanner Scott allowed a walk-off single. “It’s hard to recount a game like this,” Roberts said. “We just couldn’t get that last out.” Two days later, the Dodgers lost another no-hit bid in the ninth (thou[gh they were able to beat the Rockies that time). And though Yamamoto said this game was “hard to swallow,” things turned out OK for him in the end.
Sept. 18: Clayton Kershaw announces retirement
After flirting with retirement for years, Kershaw finally called it a career. “Usually we wait until the offseason to kind of make a final call, but I think almost going into the season, we kind of knew that this was going to be it,” Kershaw said.
During his announcement, he read a letter from his wife, Ellen. His voice cracked as he talked about his teammates. He joked about the trainers getting his “carcass” across the finish line. Kershaw had nowhere close to his Hall-of-Fame stuff in 2025. He finished the season with an 11-2 record and a 3.36 ERA and the second-most innings of any pitcher on the roster.
Oct. 3: Mookie Betts learns to deal with failure
If you asked someone which Dodger has led the majors in WAR (per Baseball Reference) three times, most would probably say Ohtani. It’s actually Betts (2018, 2020, 2023). So when Betts started the season reeling from a severe illness and his slump dragged on, he was in unfamiliar territory. But as Betts became one of the game’s best defensive shortstops and yanked himself out of an offensive abyss (relatively speaking) with an .899 OPS in September, it was a great feeling.
“It’s just hard to gain your weight and sustain strength in the middle of a season, when you’ve been traveling and doing all these things,” Betts said. “I think I finally got all that back and was able to fix a couple of mechanics and didn’t really have to try and add on power anymore. I could just swing and let it do its thing.”
Oct. 13: Sasaki finally puts himself on the major-league map
L.A.’s bullpen was its main concern heading into October. Enter Sasaki, who returned at the end of the regular season in a new role after being away for several months. Roberts deployed him in the eighth inning of a tied Game 4 against the Philadelphia Phillies. When Sasaki needed just eight pitches to retire the side in order, he went back out there for the ninth. When the next three men went down, Roberts gave Sasaki the 10th. When Sasaki’s final out settled in Teoscar Hernández’s glove, Sasaki roared. Roberts ran out of the dugout to greet him. “He’s a dog,” Alex Vesia said. “I mean, he goes down in the history books.”
Oct. 17: Ohtani authors the greatest individual performance ever
Let’s start with the six scoreless innings in which Ohtani, in his 16th start since a second major elbow ligament reconstruction, struck out 10 batters and had perhaps his best splitter of the season. Then the three home runs, each as impressive as the last, including one that rocketed past the pavilion seats in right field and even stunned some of the most talented players in the world. “It’s the limitations of the human brain,” said Friedman. “We can’t comprehend just how special this is and how unique. It’s one of one.”
Oct. 21: Even the favorites need a team meeting occasionally
Before frittering away Yamamoto’s no-hitter in Baltimore on Sept. 6, Roberts gathered the team and provided a message: Stop trying to be perfect. Then, instead of wallowing in the no-hitter that turned into a walk-off loss, the Dodgers won the next day, then kept on winning. They finished the regular season on a 15-5 roll after that point and carried a renewed sense of confidence into the postseason. “October is obviously the goal for us,” Max Muncy said. “Once you get to October, it’s, ‘All right, it’s game time.’ And that’s how we’re taking it.”
Oct. 31: Can Yamamoto save the season?
After becoming the first Dodgers pitcher to throw consecutive postseason complete games, Yamamoto faced his greatest challenge (until, perhaps, one night later): saving the Dodgers’ season in an elimination game in Toronto after they had lost Game 5. “The right guy,” outfielder Kiké Hernández said before Game 6, “at the right time.” That turned out to be true, as Yamamoto quieted the Rogers Centre crowd with six brilliant innings to collect his fourth win of the postseason and help force a Game 7.
Repeating is never meant to be easy
At one point trailing by three runs, at another point two outs away from defeat and in the end out of pitchers, the Dodgers could not be denied. Yamamoto secured the final eight outs of Game 7 after having started Game 6 the night before, earning the Japanese star the World Series MVP. Betts finished off the game-ending double play. Will Smith and infielder Miguel Rojas supplied the late-night home runs that put the Dodgers in position to win, and the Dodgers did something that hadn’t been accomplished in 25 years.