Dodgers defeat Padres to win 11th NL West title in 12 seasons

The scene was familiar as the Dodgers streamed out of their dugout Thursday night to celebrate the National League West title they secured with a 7-2 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium.

However, this success — the franchise's 22nd Division championship and 11th in the last 12 years — felt a little different.

Although it happened the same evening, one of their star players was injured.

After trailing 2-0 early in the seventh inning, the Dodgers came to life with their usual explosive offensive outburst. Will Smith broke the tie by skipping a fastball up the middle from Padres starter Joe Musgrove for a two-run home run up the middle. Shohei Ohtani gave the Dodgers the lead, sliding an RBI single through the right side of the infield. Mookie Betts put an exclamation point on it, hitting a two-run single the other way en route to the Dodgers' 41st comeback win of the season.

A few moments later, however, came a moment of great concern.

While trying to avoid a tag at first base, veteran slugger Freddie Freeman rolled his right ankle badly two steps behind the bag. The eight-time All-Star and former MVP immediately collapsed to the ground in what appeared to be severe pain. He left the field under his own power but cautiously walked back to the clubhouse as the sellout crowd fell silent.

Two innings later, the Dodgers celebrated again, cementing their place atop the league on the night of their NL leaders' 41st comeback win of the season.

But now the attention turns to October – where the Dodgers also secured a first-round bye but now have yet another problem to solve on their already injury-plagued roster.

Thursday's game reflected the ups and downs the Dodgers (95-64) have experienced all season.

This division title, after all, was not like most others in the club's decades of regular-season dominance, where it often finished the division well before the finish line and typically held double-digit game leads.

It wasn't like 2018 either, when the Dodgers dug themselves out of an early-season hole and clinched the title in Game 163; the last time they won the division was in Chavez Ravine.

Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a run-scoring single in the seventh inning against the Padres on Thursday.

(Ashley Landis/Associated Press)

The conquest of this year's title followed a different script – a scenario marked by unprecedented expectations after the billion-dollar offseason, repeatedly derailed by injuries to the patchwork starting lineup and ultimately earned with a series of season-defining moments spread down the stretch were.

A month ago there was the Dodgers' series win in Arizona, when they suffered an injury to Clayton Kershaw (whose postseason status remains in doubt) after just one inning, but managed to defeat the then-second-ranked Diamondbacks and win three of four games.

There was the recent road trip to Atlanta and Miami, where the Dodgers lost the opening games of the series twice before managing to agree to a four-game split with the Braves (highlighted by a comeback win that ended in a ninth seven-run inning on 7/15) and a rubber-game loss to the Marlins (in which Shohei Ohtani reached the 50-50 threshold in historic fashion).

Last Sunday was the walk-off against the last-place Colorado Rockies, where Ohtani and Betts created the kind of late-game magic the team will likely need to harness next month.

And then it all culminated on Thursday night against the Padres, when the Dodgers salvaged a three-game streak that began with a game-losing triple play on Tuesday.

It wasn't the regular season the Dodgers had in mind when they bolstered their roster with superstar talent during their winter spending spree.

A win total of 100 didn't happen either, as the Dodgers are already guaranteed not to reach that mark for the first time in six years (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season).

But it required a level of character and resilience that the club has demonstrated over the past two postseasons. For the first time since the unsuccessful chase against the San Francisco Giants in 2021, the team has played one meaningful game after another in the final stages of this season.

And in most cases, they found a way to pull off a win and take the easiest path through the playoffs.

“Just fighting to the end makes our ball club better in my opinion; “Increasing the level of play and focus,” manager Dave Roberts, who was at the helm for eight division titles, said before first pitch Thursday. “So yeah, I think it’s a different year, but it’s still nice to be at the top and have the people chasing you.”

Where things go from here is still very much in question.

The pitching staff remains a serious problem. Jack Flaherty ended his regular season with two disappointing starts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto has yet to pitch beyond the fourth inning since coming off the injured list and has been battling an illness of late before his scheduled regular-season finale Saturday in Colorado.

The lineup has its own question marks – which were only heightened by Freeman's injury on Thursday, the severity of which was not immediately clear.

And to be successful in the postseason, many things will likely have to fall into place: Ohtani maintains his high late-season pace; the bullpen makes up for an expected lack of production since the start of the rotation; the kind of high-leverage hitting power the Dodgers have struggled with in recent postseasons; and certainly no more injuries for an undermanned pitching staff.

But at least the Dodgers prepared for a favorable path and avoided a best-of-three wild-card round that would have put even more strain on their pitching.

They are NL West champions again; An honor that has rarely felt so satisfying.