The broken record that is the Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs seems to be playing once again, with the team on the brink of playoff elimination at the hands of the hated San Diego Padres.
After a 6-5 loss to the host Padres Tuesday night in Game 3 of the National League Division Series, the Dodgers are facing the prospect of being drummed out of the playoffs in the divisional round for the third consecutive season.
The Dodgers have won the NL West Division title in 11 of the past 12 seasons but have just one World Series championship to show for it — that coming at the end of the COVID-shortened 2020 season.
Dave Roberts, the team's manager for the past nine seasons, has brought Los Angeles plenty of regular season success for ownership's free-spending ways. However, the Dodgers have struggled for much of Roberts' inability to bring more than one championship to Chavez Ravine.
Roberts has been on a perpetual hot seat for the last several years, with only a brief honeymoon after being crowned the best team in Major League Baseball in 2020. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times even suggested a move could be on the way.
"So here the Dodgers sit again, on the precipice of massive failure, in the same place they were in 2022 when they lost this series to the Padres in four games, and nearly the same place they were last season when they were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks... For Dodger fans still waiting for their first full-season championship in 36 years, it’s never looked worse."
While Roberts owns an 851-506 regular-season record as Los Angeles manager, he is just 46-41 in the playoffs. Loss number 42, if it comes in the next two games against the Padres, might be his final defeat in the uniform of a team that has won just three World Series titles since he was born in 1972.
More MLB: Four-time manager of the year wants to lead the White Sox
