Dodgers defeat Diamondbacks to clinch their 12th NL West title in 13 seasons

Jack Harris, Los Angeles Times on Sep 25, 2025

Published in Baseball

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PHOENIX — It was not supposed to be this difficult. It was not expected to feel so frustrating.

Six months ago, the question was not whether the Dodgers would win the National League West, but how far out of the water they'd blow the competition.

It wasn't whether they'd enter October in position to defend their World Series title, but if they could set a single-season wins record along the way.

What played out instead, of course, was a disappointing regular season relative to the club's lofty preseason expectations.

The team will not win 100 games, let alone the 120 that some predicted ahead of the year. It will not have a bye for the first round of the playoffs, having limped through much of the second half of the schedule. It did not realize the full potential of its $400 million roster, hampered by starting pitching injuries early in the year, bullpen implosions down the stretch and an extended funk from the lineup in the middle of the summer. It did not play like the star-studded juggernaut or villainous evil empire or ascendant dynastic power the rest of the baseball world had labeled it to be.

"It hasn't been easy," manager Dave Roberts said.

Now, however, none of that matters anymore.

With an 8-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday at Chase Field, the Dodgers clinched their 12th division title in the last 13 years. They ensured that they will open the playoffs at home, even though it will start with a best-of-three wild-card round beginning next Tuesday. And most important, despite their struggles over the last couple months, they feel they are entering October playing the kind of baseball that had eluded them for much of the year, finally starting to feel like they are reaching their tantalizing ceiling.

"I do feel that in totality, we're playing our best baseball of the season," Roberts said. "The win-loss hasn't reflected it, but I think that's what's most important. There's just been a lot of good things and a lot of growth from a lot of players, which has been fun to see."

Fun is not a word that has often been associated with the Dodgers this season.

Early in the year, their best starters were hurt and many of their best hitters were struggling. They still built a nine-game lead in the division in early July, only to play 10 games under .500 for the next two months, allowing the San Diego Padres to get back in the division race.

They will enter October facing a litany of questions — none bigger than a bullpen that has been run down by a heavy workload and let down by the struggles of its most trusted veterans.

But with Thursday's division-clincher, they have also won 12 of their last 17 games, and will enter the postseason riding some long-missing momentum.

"The thing that I think is pretty telling is [that with] all that we've gone through, that this team stayed connected," Roberts said. "That's where you get to learn a lot about players individually and collectively. It gets rough, it gets hot, you start to struggle and [have] injuries — we didn't make any excuses and we kept fighting. That's the thing, is even when it was our darkest, I just always saw our guys stay together and compete. I believe the talent with the fight is going to show through October."

The last two days have epitomized that orthodoxy, with the Dodgers (90-69) sewing up the division with a pair of resilient victories.

After familiar bullpen collapses on Sunday and Tuesday, the team got creative in an extra-innings win on Wednesday, following a strong start from Blake Snell with relief appearances by Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw.

Then, on Thursday, the offense set an early tone by scoring four times in the second inning (on home runs from Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages, plus a two-run single from Mookie Betts) and four more in the fourth (on a pair of two-run blasts from Freeman and Shohei Ohtani), giving Yoshinobu Yamamoto plenty of breathing room in a scoreless six-inning start.

That's the blueprint the Dodgers will have to replicate in the playoffs — superb starting pitching, out-of-the-box bullpen management, and both timely and explosive offense to successfully defend their World Series championship.

For much of this year, they couldn't produce those ingredients consistently.

But now, with another division crown captured and the pursuit of a second-consecutive title awaiting, the slate has been wiped clean.

"We have an opportunity to make history," Roberts said, acknowledging the difficulties that have come with trying to become MLB's first repeat champion in 25 years. "But that's part of it. It shouldn't be easy."