The Dodgers remain alive in the National League West race going into the final day of the regular season on Sunday.
Los Angeles prevailed over the Brewers at home on Saturday night by a score of 8-3 (box score) for their sixth win in a row. That victory in tandem with the Giants‘ loss to the Padres in extra innings earlier on Saturday means that the Dodgers (105-56) now trail San Francisco (106-55) by only a single game in the NL West standings. Another Dodger win over Milwaukee on Sunday and another Giants loss to the Padres would force a Game 163 tiebreaker on Monday at San Francisco (the Giants will host because they won the regular season series between the two teams).
The winner of that game would be NL West champs and advance to the NLDS to face the winner of the NL Wild Card Game. The loser of that tiebreaker — i.e., the NL West runner-up — would host the Cardinals on Wednesday in the Wild Card Game. While either the Dodgers or Giants would be favored over the Cardinals in that game, one-and-done postseason encounters are highly perilous for the favored team. Obviously, the Dodgers and Giants have heavy incentives to avoid such a scenario and advance straight to the best-of-five NLDS as division champs.
In Saturday’s big win, Julio Urias gave the Dodgers 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball and in doing so lowered his ERA for the season to 2.96. Urias also picked up his MLB-leading 20th win of the season. Powering the offense were third baseman Justin Turner, outfielder A.J. Pollack and shortstop Corey Seager, who all homered. Los Angeles is now 42-13 since August 1. This year’s model becomes just the third team in Dodger franchise history to win at least 105 games in a season. The Dodgers previously won 105 games in 1953 and a franchise-record 106 games in 2019.
The Dodgers are vying to win the NL West title for the ninth straight year. The last team other than the Dodgers to win the division was the Giants in 2012.
