SAN FRANCISCO — This is the 60th anniversary of the 1966 World Series, in which the losing team did not score for the final 33 innings of the series.
That losing team was the Dodgers. Over the final three games of the series, Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally of the Baltimore Orioles each pitched a complete-game shutout.
That art of pitching is not in style today. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched two complete games last October, but he cannot pitch every game, even if he left that impression upon the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Dodgers’ clearest and cleanest route to a three-peat nonetheless rests upon the four shoulders of Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. If the four aces can do to October opponents what the 1966 Orioles did to the Dodgers, or some reasonable 21st century facsimile, we’ll see you at the parade.
Does Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believe his starting pitchers will have to carry the load in October?
“I hope not,” Roberts said.
Friday’s 2-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants offered two encouraging swings. Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages each hit home runs, a reminder that a properly tuned Dodgers offense runs on more than Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith.
Skubal scattered three hits and struck out 10 in seven scoreless innings, which would have gone for naught without the Hernández and Pages home runs. Given that the Dodgers were playing the Giants and the remains of their depleted roster, it was something of a warning sign: this could happen against a postseason team.
No team can plan to score a lot of runs against the Dodgers’ starters. The opposing game plan would be to neutralize them and keep the game close enough to where one or two big swings can make the difference. The Giants, who have the National League’s second-worst record, almost pulled it off.
“When you get to the postseason, they’re going to try to eliminate Shohei and try to make other guys beat you,” Roberts said. “So it always sort of comes to the middle to the bottom of the order, where you’ve either got to get guys on base or get hits, get big hits.”
In October, Hernández is who you want at bat. He has homered in six of the seven postseason series he has played for the Dodgers, including each of the last five. In 33 postseason games for the Dodgers, he has driven in 25 runs.
For most players, offensive production drops in October, when batters face the best pitchers from the best teams. For Hernández, his career OPS is .796 in the regular season and .792 in the postseason.
And, for all his summer struggles, he is batting .354 this month, with an OPS just shy of 1.000. He’ll be, as the league-issued hoodies used to say, October ready.
For Pages, however, last October was cruel.
This October was not looking particularly promising, either. Pages missed 27 games because of a broken hand, leaving him the final six games of the regular season to get his swing back into rhythm.
“You think that you take five weeks off,” Roberts said, “that your timing is going to be off a little bit.”
So far, so good: five hits in 12 at-bats, including the home run Friday.
Pages ended the regular season last year with four hits in his final 28 at-bats. That, Roberts said, tells him this October will be different for Pages.
“I think the one thing is the confidence, how he went into last October really scuffling, and it sort of bled into October,” Roberts said, “where I think right now he feels really confident, swinging the bat well, and the hope is that this one bleeds into October as well.
“So, I think it’s definitely a different result going into October, and then also his headspace. There’s a lot more confidence this year.”
In 2025, when the Dodgers won the World Series, they ranked second among the 30 major league clubs in runs scored, and in home runs. In 2024, when they won the World Series, they ranked third in runs scored, and in home runs.
The Dodgers rank fourth in runs scored this year, and seventh in home runs. The offense is down some, if not much. In all the national postseason hype, the Dodgers projections will boil down to one sentence: Can anyone stop those starters?
“I think at first glance that’s what you see in our ballclub,” Roberts said. “But we have a lot of talented, really good hitters and I hope they work hand in hand and not just our pitching and defense carry us.”
For the Dodgers, the postseason opens one week from Saturday. If the Dodgers roll out the 1966 playbook, their October stay will be short.
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