The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants have 28 regular-season games left each, and yet only three of them, as of Friday night at Oracle Park, will be between them.
It tells you everything you need to know about how the NL West has evolved.
The Giants weren’t supposed to be here. This was to be another transitional year under team president Farhan Zaidi, one in which the Giants would stick around for the most part just playing to meet the schedule and not sink. Meanwhile, the Dodgers would face another budding rival: the San Diego Padres, a team Los Angeles is scheduled to play six more times this month, including at the end.
But the Padres have faded, now fighting not for the division title but for a wild-card spot, and the NL West has turned into a two-team race between two historic rivals who couldn’t be more evenly matched than heading into their final meeting.
The Dodgers and Giants enter with identical MLB-leading 85-49 records thanks to a recent rally in the second and a rare stumble from the first. And the series of the season could not be tighter.
Wins for each in the series: Dodgers 8, Giants 8
Runs for everyone in the series: Dodgers 68, Giants 68
Eleven of those 16 games have been decided by three runs or less, four have had a lead that has disappeared in the ninth inning, and one of them, on May 28, saw Mike tauchman rob Albert pujols a home run to end the game. Max muncy threw his bat on May 27, Kenley jansen walked a tightrope on June 29, Dave Roberts got very upset on July 22 and Cody Bellinger made an erratic shot on July 27.
The Dodgers, winners of eight straight division titles, and the Giants, five years into their last winning season, are on track to finish in triple-digit wins and are heading for a possible division series showdown. In the divisional era, dating back to 1969, there have only been four instances of 100-win teams residing within the same division, according to ESPN Stats & Information:
2018 AL East: Red Sox (108), Yankees (100)
2001 American League West: Mariners (116), Athletics (102)
1993 National League West: Braves (104), Giants (103)
1980 American League East: Yankees (103), Orioles (100)
The 1980 Orioles and 1993 Giants went home immediately after superlative regular seasons, while the 2001 A’s were awarded a best-of-five series and the 2018 Yankees were promised only one playoff game. The latter fate awaits the Dodgers or the Giants, playing in what could be the final year of this playoff format. Failing to win this division means having to win a sudden death game to qualify to advance to a larger sample size.
Considering the stakes and how close they’ve 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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