Dodgers’ best winning formula: Beating the pulp out of division opponents
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If a team wants to be the best in its division, it has to beat the other teams within its division. Like the bully on the block. Like Alexander the Great on the battlefield.
A simple enough approach, and one the Dodgers worked to near-perfection last season in capturing the National League West.
The Dodgers went 95-67 last season, a winning record built mostly upon taking care of teams within the NL West.
The Dodgers went 46-26 against teams in its division last season, and 49-41 against everyone else. And won the West by three games over the Rockies, a team that went 33-39 in the division.
This year the Dodgers are on the same track, going 9-3 against West teams. The only other team within the division to have a wining record in the West is the first-place Padres (11-6).
The Dodgers’ biggest problem this season has been everyone else. They’re 8-14 against teams outside the West.
Every victory counts the same, but if you’re beating a divisional foe you’re accomplishing two things at once by tagging them with a loss that would otherwise be out of your control.
The only team in the West the Dodgers haven’t played this year are the Padres. They meet them in five of their next seven games.
A perfect time to continue exercising their divisional dominance.
-- Steve Dilbeck