LA Dodgers break a 32-year curse and are the new MLB Champions!

 

It was a short but sweet MLB season, and the LA Dodgers were the best of the best, breaking a 32-year title drought and becoming the MLB champions for the first time since 1988. The Dodgers were on top of the game since day 1 of the regular season, remained first in the NL West permanently, got to the playoffs as favorites and in the end, they confirmed they are the best, and brought joy to a city that was still celebrating the Lakers success in the NBA from just a few weeks ago.

It was a World Series to remember, that’s for sure, the Tampa Bay Rays also have a great team and did their best to put up a fight, with historical numbers from Randy Arozarena and a few other players that truly shined, but the truth of the matter is that the Dodgers were never behind in the series, and it was the Rays the one who always had to try and crawl back and fight.

The World Series started on October 20^th, when the Dodgers took the lead with an 8-3 win, but the Rays responded right back, the next day, 6-4. Game 3 ended with a 6-2 win for Los Angeles, and then the Rays answered right back again, with a thrilling 8-7 victory in game 4. It was all Dodgers after that, 4-2 in Game 5, and 3-1 for game 6, to finally be able to celebrate, after making it to the World Series twice in the past 3 seasons but losing both times.

Here were many doubts at times, about the leadership and capacity of Dave Roberts as a coach, about Clayton Kershaw being able to close out the series, and many other things that popped into MLB fans’ minds at times, but the truth is that figures like Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, who was WS MVP, by the way, Justin Turner, who tested positive right in the middle of Game 6, and many other, were just too much to deal with for any team. The title is well deserved, we must admit.

Dodgers MLB 2020 season in numbers

As we said before, the Dodgers dominated the league all season long and finished on top of the NL West table with a remarkable 43-17 record, the best in the MLB. Only one other team in the league got to 40 wins this season, and it was Tampa Bay, precisely. In the extended postseason, the Dodgers beat the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Wildcard Series, 2-0, the San Diego Padres were no match either in the Divisional Series, even though they had the second best record in the National League, the series ended 3-0 in the Dodgers favor. The Atlanta Braves made things complicated in the NLCS and the series had to go to 7 games, while the World Series went to 6 games against Tampa Bay Rays.

Corey Seager had the best batting average for the MLB Champions this season, .307 for him while Mookie Betts followed with .292, #17 and #19 in the league’s Top 20 best batters, category led by Washington Nationals’ Juan Soto, with .351 in the regular season.

On the pitching side, no Dodgers pitchers figure in the league’s Top 40 ERA stats in the regular season, and Kershaw is just #34 in the Top 40 list of pitchers with more strikeouts, with 62, while in the postseason, Kershaw was third on the list with 37, Walker Buehler had 39 and the leader was Tampa Bay’s Tyler Glasnow, with 40.

Can’t wait for the new MLB season! Let’s see what the offseason brings this time, and what type of adjustments we’ll see from the MLB for 2021.