It’s fitting, for two storied rivals who couldn’t have been more evenly matched these past five months, that their season finale comes in this context: The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants are tied for the best record in the sport when only left. 26 games.
The teams, which posted an 8-8 record and a 68-68 run in this weekend’s series, split the first two games at Oracle Park, creating a decisive game for Sunday Night Baseball. (7 p.m. ET on ESPN), when Walker Buehler take the ball against a series of Giants relievers.
The Giants weren’t supposed to be here. This was seen as another transitional year under president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, one in which the Giants would stick for the most part. Meanwhile, the Dodgers were expected to face a budding rival: the San Diego Padres, a team LA is scheduled to play with six more times this month.
But the Padres have faded, now fighting not for the division title but for a wild-card spot, and the National League West has turned into a two-team race.
Twelve of the 18 games between the Giants and Dodgers this season have been decided by three runs or less. Five have presented a lead that disappears in the ninth, and one, on May 28, saw Mike Tauchman steal from Albert pujols a home run to leave the field.
The Dodgers, winners of eight straight division titles, and the Giants, five years into their last winning season, are on track for triple-digit wins and heading for a possible division series showdown. In the divisional era, dating back to 1969, there have only been four instances of multiple 100-win teams residing within the same division, according to ESPN Stats & Information:
2018 East LA: Red Sox (108), Yankees (100)
2001 LA West: Mariners (116), Athletics (102)
1993 NL West: Braves (104), Giants (103)
1980 East LA: Yankees (103), Orioles (100)
The 1980 Orioles and 1993 Giants went home immediately after superlative regular seasons, while the 2001 Athletics were awarded a best-of-five series and the 2018 Yankees were promised only a one-game tiebreaker. . The ultimate fate awaits the Dodgers or Giants, playing in what could be the final year of this playoff format. Not winning this division means having to win a sudden death game for the right to advance to a larger sample size.
Given the stakes, and how even the teams have been to date, we enlisted the help of a handful of scouts to determine which team has the advantage in five key areas.
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