{"id":935690,"date":"2026-10-16T22:28:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/935690\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T22:28:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T22:28:23","slug":"end-of-a-dynasty-dodgers-digest-playoff-drubbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/935690\/","title":{"rendered":"End of a dynasty? Dodgers digest playoff drubbing"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n The Los Angeles Dodgers entered Major League Baseball’s 2026 season as red-hot favorites to complete a hat-trick of World Series titles.<\/p>\n

A star-studded roster headlined by Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani had already delivered back-to-back MLB championships in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

And the gaudy offseason additions of star closer Edwin Diaz and outfielder Kyle Tucker left many convinced that a World Series three-peat for the franchise regarded as baseball’s “Death Star” was inevitable.<\/p>\n

Yet fast forward to Thursday night, and those predictions had, like every Death Star in every Star Wars movie ever made, been blown to smithereens.<\/p>\n

A 4-0 National League Championship Series clean sweep by the relentless Milwaukee Brewers means that for the first time since 2023, the Dodgers will not be headed to the World Series.<\/p>\n

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said his expensively assembled team — the Dodgers’ current reported payroll of $338 million dwarfs the Brewers’ $143.5 million — had simply been “outplayed in all facets.”<\/p>\n

“Those guys played flawless,” Roberts said.<\/p>\n

“Defensively they pitched better than we did, they hit better than we did, they slugged more than we did. You’ve got to sometimes just tip your cap.<\/p>\n

“I personally told our guys that there’s no apologies, there’s no sorries. We gave it everything we had, and it wasn’t good enough. That’s part of life.”<\/p>\n

Yet as the Brewers celebrated a first World Series berth in 44 years before a silent Dodger Stadium, the inquests had already begun.<\/p>\n

While the Dodgers had comfortably advanced to the postseason on the back of a 100-win season, the team had been flashing warning lights for most of the latter part of the season.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n The poor form and questionable fitness of Ohtani loomed large over the postseason, with some even wondering if the $700 million star should be dropped from the starting line-up.<\/p>\n

Although Ohtani provided a dramatic reminder of his talent with a spectacular three-run home run to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead in game four on Thursday, he remained largely ineffective at the plate in his other at-bats.<\/p>\n

Niggling knee and bicep injuries had dogged the four-time National and American League Most Valuable Player throughout the final months of the season, leaving the 32-year-old looking a shell of the two-way player who a year ago had belted three home runs and bagged 10 strikeouts in a single outing against the Brewers.<\/p>\n

“Honestly I’m just very disappointed,” Ohtani, 32, said after Thursday’s loss.<\/p>\n

“The Brewers were overall very strong and exposed some of the parts of me as a player, so full credit to them for that.”<\/p>\n

But Ohtani’s shortcomings in the postseason were shared by several team-mates.<\/p>\n

A vaunted starting pitching rotation, bolstered by ace Tarik Skubal at August’s trade deadline, failed to dominate against the Brewers.<\/p>\n

The high-powered batting line-up, meanwhile, went ice cold when it mattered most. “They couldn’t hit sand if they fell off a camel,” was one pundit’s withering assessment.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers were a paltry 5-for-43 with runners in scoring position during the postseason, an offensive collapse that torpedoed their series with the Brewers.<\/p>\n

That under-powered performance has raised questions about the Dodgers’ ageing line-up.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers had the oldest postseason roster in 2026, averaging 30.9 years of age, and were eliminated by a Brewers team boasting the youngest (27.5).<\/p>\n

Several core members of the Dodgers’ back-to-back World Series-winning teams are well into their 30s — 2024 World Series MVP Freddie Freeman is 37, shortstop Mookie Betts is 34, third baseman Max Muncy is 36.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers are likely to freshen up the roster during the offseason, with some veterans either already retired or unlikely to return.<\/p>\n

“We do know we have an older team,” Freeman acknowledged before Thursday’s exit.<\/p>\n

“That doesn’t mean we’re old and we’re playing bad because we’re old. We’re just not playing that great, in my mind.”<\/p>\n

“For three years straight we left it all out there,” Dodgers veteran infielder Muncy reflected. “The train finally ran out of steam, I guess. It just sucks.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Dodgers entered Major League Baseball’s 2026 season as red-hot favorites to complete a hat-trick of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-935690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}