Dodgers' postseason failures, ranked: How it all went wrong from 2013 to 2023
To be a Los Angeles Dodger fan in this unprecedented era of prosperity is to revel in their superstars – and soak in their failures.
To allow hope to peek in each autumn – only to mourn the end with its dead leaves.
And to know that however dominant, however bulletproof the club may look from April to September, that a grim, soul-crushing exit is likely in the offing come October.
These Dodgers remain firmly entrenched in a fabulous run of success – 11 consecutive trips to the playoffs, 10 of them via the National League West title, with the other season producing 106 wins.
Yet in a cruel twist, their only championship came in the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, which with its extra round of playoffs did not diminish the significance, only robbing the chance for their fans to, you know, watch the games in person.
The other years? Take your pick for the enduring images: Clayton Kershaw with his head in his hands, searching for answers. Dave Roberts, trying to maintain a stoic veneer as the season goes sideways.
Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts or Cody Bellinger or Adrian Gonzalez, sluggers rendered punchless when it counts.
Yet some exits are worse than others. Expectations can be a bear; they make a sudden end all the more jarring. With that USA TODAY Sports ranks the Dodgers’ 10 playoff failures since 2013, from least to most wrenching:
10. 2018: Lost World Series to Red Sox, 4-1
Losing in the Fall Classic is always a total drag, but relative to expectations, this was a pretty good outcome. The Dodgers had a hangover from 2017, with key first-half injuries and general malaise limiting them to 92 wins – second-fewest in this run – and forcing a one-game playoff against Colorado for the West title.
They also saw the emergence of Walker Buehler as a big-game pitcher, and a Roberts pitching move prompt the first tweet from a sitting president in a World Series game. No shame losing to these Red Sox: At 11-2 in the postseason, they might be the greatest playoff team of this era.
9. 2016: Lost NLCS to Cubs, 4-2
Once again, painful at the time, a little easier to swallow in hindsight. If the ’16 Cubs were a team of destiny, the Dodgers simply got in the way.
They also battled gamely, playing uphill after Joe Blanton gave up a Game 1 grand slam to Miguel Montero. The loss would be avenged a year later, as well.
8. 2014: Lost NLDS to Cardinals, 3-1
No exit better exemplifies the Kershaw Playoff Narrative – an unsettling stew made up of equal parts managerial malfeasance, a preponderance of appearances and, of course, Kershaw’s own failings. The lefty was amid the greatest two-year run of his career – back-to-back Cy Young Awards and his only no-hitter that year.
And manager Don Mattingly was a little too eager to lean on him.
On a 96-degree day at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers chased Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright in the fourth inning while Kershaw gave up two runs in six innings of Game 1 and took a 6-2 lead into the seventh. And that’s when Mattingly left him out to wilt, coming to get him only after giving up seven hits and six runs, a 6-2 lead turning into a 10-6 deficit.
You think the game has changed a bit? Imagine a manager today letting his starter face eight batters in the seventh inning.
For good measure, Kershaw took a shutout into the seventh inning of Game 4 – before Mattingly left him in to give up three runs in a season-ending loss. Folks, there’s levels to this narrative.
7. 2013: Lost NLCS to Cardinals, 4-2
The start of this run, which began with such promise – a 3-1 NLDS conquest of Atlanta that was without incident – and ended with perhaps the worst Kershaw shellacking in October.
The Cardinals blitzed him for seven runs in Game 6, knocking the lefty out before he could retire a batter in the fifth inning, a 10-hit drubbing that raised whispers he was tipping his pitches.
Sometimes, it’s all about the sequencing: Kershaw delivered a six-inning, two-hit, no-earned-runs gem in Game 2 – but the Dodgers couldn’t score a run off rookie Michael Wacha in a 1-0 loss.
6. 2023: Lost NLDS to Diamondbacks, 3-0
OK, so a 100-win team losing to an 84-win team – its proverbial little brother, no less – is a terrible, terrible look. Worse yet when your nine-figure superstars – Freddie Freeman (one single in 10 at-bats) and Mookie Betts (0 for 11) – just blatantly disappear.
Yet you could almost see this coming. There’s little tread left on Kershaw’s tires – in this case, a sore shoulder that left him badly exposed in a Game 1 shellacking. A bevy of young pitching stars – Bobby Miller, Ryan Pepiot, Michael Grove – might be great some day but weren’t ready for prime time.
And after a series of soul-crushing losses preceding this year (read on), Dodgers fans almost had a sense this was coming.
5. 2015: Lost NLDS to Mets, 3-2
We don’t pay much attention to the Zack Greinke Era in L.A., a three-year run that ended with the enigmatic right-hander exercising an opt-out clause. In hindsight, he and Kershaw should have helmed at least one pennant winner.
Instead, the club had one of its most maddening exits when Greinke was at his peak.
He was 19-3 with a majors-best 1.66 ERA and 0.84 WHIP, finishing second to Jake Arrieta in the Cy Young race. But the Dodgers were merely a platform for the Mets’ coming-out party for their young arms: Jacob deGrom struck out 13 in seven shutout innings of Game 1, and it was a crawl from there.
And while Kershaw sent the series back to L.A. for a decisive Game 5 with seven innings of one-run ball in Game 4 (through a chorus of boos for Chase Utley), the Daniel Murphy Experience was too much to overcome. The sometimes erratic second baseman’s third homer of the series, off Greinke in Game 5, and his startling swipe of third base when nobody covered the bag was a galling way for this club to fall short.
At season's end, the Dodgers' new management team moved on from Mattingly, hoping Roberts would take them to another level.
4. 2021: Lost NLCS to Braves, 4-2
As you watch the remainder of these playoffs, enjoy the stylings of shortstop Corey Seager, who’s in the second year of a $325 million contract with the Texas Rangers, and Trea Turner, in Year 1 of a $300 million deal to play short for the Phillies. If his shoulder cooperates, take in the competitive insanity of Max Scherzer, who will make $43 million this year and would round out the Rangers’ ALCS rotation quite nicely.
And now pause to consider that just two years ago, all three were on the same team.
Just one problem: They won 106 games in a year the Giants won 107, and MLB’s playoff vagaries forced them not only to play a wild-card game but then meet the Giants in the best-of-five NLDS.
On one hand, their five-game conquest of the Giants was a Pyrrhic victory: Scherzer served as closer for Game 5, then was unavailable for the NLCS with what he termed a dead arm.
On another hand, this wound was self-inflicted, the Dodgers’ front office getting too cute by half in the playoffs.
See, they could have simply started Julio Urias in Game 5 against the Giants; he was 20-3 that year and struck out 195 in 185 ⅔ innings. Instead, they went galaxy brain.
Reliever Corey Knebel served as the opener. Fellow set-up man Brusdar Graterol followed Knebel. Finally, Urias entered in the third - but only threw 59 pitches, and only covered four innings. That left the bullpen an arm short after Kenley Jansen and Blake Treinen turned in scoreless outings.
Enter Scherzer. Dodgers win. Exit Scherzer.
Exit Dodgers.
And that’s how a club with two MVPs, several Hall of Famers and a really good bullpen – often the fatal flaw in the Mattingly-Roberts-Kershaw era – failed to win it all.
3. 2017: Lost World Series to Astros, 4-3
In a sane world, this would top the list: Just an absolute punch in the gut for a 104-win team that entered 7-1 in the postseason. Yet hindsight – a little matter known as the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal – knocks this down the list a bit.
Like the ’21 team, this squad had a stout bullpen, with Kenta Maeda and Brandon Morrow joining Jansen to form a crew built for the postseason. It added Yu Darvish at the trade deadline. Five regulars had an OPS north of .800.
And when Kershaw pitched a three-hitter in Game 1 – time of game, 2 hours, 28 minutes in the pre-clock era – it all lined up.
All hell broke loose in Game 2: Roberts yanked Rich Hill early. A hillside caught on fire. A fan jumped into the Astros bullpen. Houston forced extras and won 7-6 in 11 innings.
And on to Minute Maid Park, where we will edit this content for mature audiences only.
We’ll never know exactly what the Astros did and how it affected the Dodgers. But for their fans, the sting will likely never go away.
2. 2019: Lost NLDS to Nationals, 3-2
After two consecutive World Series trips, the Dodgers came back with maybe their greatest team of this era. They won 106 games and captured the NL West by 21 games. Cody Bellinger blasted 47 home runs and won NL MVP. The club wasn’t as platoon-insane as the previous season.
And then the two recurring nightmares of this run – a weird management decision, a Kershaw pratfall – sent them all home.
Credit the Washington Nationals, who used their six-man pitching staff to keep the Dodgers in the yard by the thinnest of margins. But the enduring image of this series will be Kershaw, head in hands, after Roberts strangely tapped him to relieve in the decisive Game 5.
Um, OK. Kershaw punched out Adam Eaton to end the seventh – and then went back out for the eighth, to a chorus of horrified screams from Reseda to Rubidoux.
In a 4-2 game, with Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto due up, it was like a horror film where the audience screams, “Don’t open that door!”
Rendon: Home run. Soto: Home run.
Howie Kendrick: 10th-inning grand slam.
You honestly couldn’t make this stuff up.
1. 2022: Lost NLDS to Padres, 3-1
So many baseball tragedies on this list. Yet this was just a grim nadir, a fiesta of superstars failing, management micromanaging and blatant underachievement.
Having added Freeman on a relatively cheap $162 million deal, this seemed like a special window. Freeman (.918 OPS) and Betts (.873) produced like superstars. This would be Turner’s last year in L.A., and he had shortstop all to himself; that trio would finish fourth, fifth and ninth in MVP voting.
They won 111 – 111! – games, a franchise record.
Once again, none of it mattered.
With San Diego forced to burn its pitching in the wild-card series, the deck was even further stacked. Urias won Game 1 – but an unsettling trend was developing.
No Dodger starter would see the sixth inning this series.
Kershaw, Game 2: 80 pitches, five innings, leaves with 3-2 lead – Dodgers lose 5-3.
Tony Gonsolin, Game 3: 1 ⅓ innings, 42 pitches, leaves facing 1-0 deficit – Dodgers lose 2-1.
Tyler Anderson, Game 4: 86 pitches, five innings, leaves with 2-0 lead – Dodgers lose 5-3.
It was a grim tribute to the Dodgers’ love of scripting every game as best they can – yet baseball has no script. Perhaps that’s the thread tying all this misery together.
One more out from a starter. One less inning from a starter. A little less exposure for a reliever.
From Mattingly to Roberts, from Pedro Baez to Alex Vesia and with Kershaw along for every grim ride, the end is almost always the same.
Get ‘em next year?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers' postseason failures, ranked: Every playoff exit since 2013
