Column: Dodgers have fans wanting more, not more of the same

The Champagne-soaked uniforms had been scrubbed, the beer grins back to tight smiles.

At Chavez Ravine this weekend, there was no evidence of the Dodgers’ bubbly celebration days before in San Francisco, where a victory over the Giants gave them their third consecutive National League West Division championship.

In the wake of a dream victory, nightmares were being relived.

“I don’t know if people in town are thinking about it,” outfielder Carl Crawford said with a sigh. “But I know we are.”

After consecutive postseasons ending in calamity, the Dodgers are stepping back on that tightrope again.

In each of the last two years, they entered the playoffs as a favorite yet were toppled before reaching their goal, both times by the St. Louis Cardinals, both times with Clayton Kershaw on the mound, each debacle a cold reminder that they have not reached a World Series since winning it in 1988.

For two years, no other team has come so close yet finished so far from meeting expectations. And now that the Dodgers are back for another attempt, with the division series against the New York Mets beginning Friday, everyone is fearing for their hearts.

Breaths will be held. Eyes will be hidden. The 60% of households who lacked access to Dodgers television during the regular season can finally watch the games, just in time to scream at the TV. From the players who fill baseball’s richest roster to the fans riding the metal seats in the right-field pavilion, Los Angeles wants to believe these Dodgers are finally strong and balanced enough to stay upright. But we also know how far and fast they can fall, because they have done it before.

Welcome to baseball’s most glorious month, October. Pray this time it lasts more than a week.

“Plain and simple,” Crawford said, “we have to get over the hump.”

This fact was recognized immediately by the man standing atop that hump. After throwing the last pitch in his one-hitter against the Giants that clinched the division championship, Kershaw, the planet’s best pitcher, raised his arms to the sky. A short time later, his scraggily beard covered in celebratory suds, his message was clear.

“This is a start,” said the ace who has melted down at the end of the two seasons.

Another false start?

The team’s dreadful postseason streak extends far beyond the reaches of the Dodgers’ current group, dating to 1995. Since then, among the 19 teams that have played at least 30 playoff games, none has a worse record than the Dodgers’ 15-28. During that time, the Dodgers have made eight playoff appearances without reaching a World Series.

In dramatic recognition of the drought, last winter the Dodgers fired longtime general manager Ned Colletti and turned their baseball operations over to Andrew Friedman, an analytics whiz who helped the Tampa Bay Rays reach the World Series in 2008. Friedman has pieced together a very different sort of Dodgers team, a workmanlike and interchangeable group he believes will have the stability and flexibility to weather postseason storms.

“I think this is a team that is extremely capable of doing some special things in October,” Friedman said. “It’s a talented group, a deep group, a roster that complements each other really well.”

Yet even now that the Dodgers have advanced to the playoffs in three consecutive years for the first time in franchise history, doubts linger. For every moment of Dodgers greatness this season, there has been a reminder of greatness wasted.

The pitching staff is led by Kershaw and Zack Greinke, league leaders in strikeouts and earned-run average, a duo so formidable that Crawford calls them “our two-headed monster.”

“With Clayton and Zack, we feel like 40% of the games will go our way just by showing up,” catcher A.J. Ellis said.

Yet in Kershaw’s last four postseason starts over two years, he is 0-4 with a 7.15 ERA, the entire battering coming from the bats of the Cardinals. Third starter Brett Anderson has already worked a career-high in innings this season. Fourth starter Alex Wood has never made a postseason start.

The Dodgers’ bats are led by first baseman Adrian Gonzalez’ power, outfielder Andre Ethier’s efficiency, third baseman Justin Turner’s red-hot swing, and the cool of rookie shortstop Corey Seager. Using 135 different batting orders — and that’s not counting changes because of the pitcher — they are tied for the league lead in the smarts of on-base percentage and are second in the power of home runs.

“We’ve got a group of guys that can figure out a way to scrap out wins,” Ellis said.

But Gonzalez batted .188 in his most recent postseason series; Ethier is batting .148 in the last two postseasons; Turner has yet to record a postseason hit, and Seager has played in barely two dozen big league games.

The bullpen is anchored by playoff veterans Kenley Jansen and J.P. Howell, but it was the Dodgers middle-innings men who failed them in recent seasons, and this year’s crew, led by Chris Hatcher, Luis Avilan and Juan Nicasio, is equally unproven.

So really, what makes anybody believe this year will be different? Howell said it’s all about the machinery.

“Everyone’s pulling on the same chain,” he said. “It’s not been like that in other years.”

Unlike past seasons dominated by Matt Kemp’s bluster, Hanley Ramirez’s moodiness and Juan Uribe’s comedy — all three were traded or signed elsewhere — this year’s chain is stainless steel and unadorned.

There were no machines spewing bubbles in the dugout after home runs. There were no outrageous postgame swimming pool celebrations. There was barely a headline out of a clubhouse once filled with daily swagger. There was no Hollywood in Hollywood, and the Dodgers are convinced that will make a difference.

“I don’t feel like I’ve lived here long enough to opine on what makes a Hollywood team,” Friedman said with a smile. “But this is a very professional group, and fans recognize that, they see the effort, how much they care. And if nothing else, our guys are going to leave it all out on the field in October.”

Signs of this toughness began on opening day when veteran shortstop Jimmy Rollins hit a three-run homer to lead the team to a comeback win over the San Diego Padres. Players credit the veteran leadership of Rollins and second baseman Howie Kendrick for setting a tone and tightening up what is now a league-leading defense.

“Do we have the talent? Yes. The hunger? The experience? Yes,” Rollins said. “Now it’s a matter of executing.”

That fight continued throughout the year, culminating in a recent rant by Kershaw in the Dodgers dugout when he felt Manager Don Mattingly had prematurely pulled him out of a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“For Clayton now, this postseason, it’s going to be personal,” Crawford said.

This is clearly a tougher team, a team built not for stars but matchups, a team whose quiet professional chemistry has become so strong that even if the tempestuous, oft-injured Yasiel Puig makes the postseason roster he is unlikely to be much of a distraction.

“We’re a little different, mentality wise,” Mattingly said. “We’re more professional, not much sense of craziness around us. It’s a little bit more of a businesslike club. More bread and butter.”

Nobody will feel the pressure more than Mattingly, who may need to lead the team to the World Series to keep his job. Yet, instead of urging everyone past those failures, he is happy his team has not forgotten.

“You don’t really want it to be out of their mind,” Mattingly said. “It’s driven them to work in the off-season to get back to it and give themselves another chance. You know how hard it is to get here, you know how painful it is when you lose, and hopefully our determination is even greater this year than in past years.”

The determination might be greater, but that tightrope is the same, with the journey holding only two possible endings.

The Dodgers are going to finish the 2015 season in either a joyous hallelujah or in a historically ugly heap. The Dodgers’ fans hope, and the Dodgers’ fans dread.

bill.plaschke@latimes.com

Twitter: @billplaschke