CLEVELAND — The Los Angeles Dodgers enter the second half of the season with the best record in baseball and a core that includes five All-Stars, but they face the same question that has followed the team since 1988: When will L.A. win the World Series again?
That’s the question manager Dave Roberts and those five All-Stars faced most at All-Star Media Day in Cleveland on Monday. The Dodgers have lost the World Series each of the last two seasons, but Dodgers outfielder and MVP candidate Cody Bellinger insists that isn’t a thought this team thinks about on a day-to-day basis.
"I think in spring training you think about October and what we can do in spring training to get back to October," Bellinger said. "Whether we were in the World Series or not, everyone’s goal is to get to the postseason and get to the World Series.
"Especially being in Los Angeles, you’ve got to win," he said. "We like winning."
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Los Angeles has done that in the first half of the season. The Dodgers have the best run differential (+129) and best home record (37-12). That’s led to a commanding 13 1/2-game lead in the NL West and makes Los Angeles a strong bet to get back to the postseason for the seventh straight season.
Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw said this year’s team learned from the 2018 season. Los Angeles didn’t break .500 until June 8 last season and turned it on in the second half of the season. This year, Los Angeles has stayed consistent throughout.
"We’ve had that mindset after last year and just came in knowing it would be a challenge to get back," Kershaw said. "We didn’t take it for granted. We kept going, kept playing well the whole season, and we’re going to try to do that for the rest of this year and try to get back to the same spot."
The Dodgers are 625-440 in the regular season since 2012, which is 30 games better than the next best team. Of course, all that has success comes without a championship. The Dodgers are 6-14 all time in the World Series; the most losses of any team on that stage.
What could put this team over the top, other than a rotation led by Kershaw and fellow All-Star pitchers Hyun Jin-Ryu and a lineup that features three players with 20-plus homers in Bellinger, Joc Pederson and Max Muncy? Bellinger pointed to rookies that have stepped up. Rookie outfielder Alex Verdugo is hitting .303 with nine homers and 39 RBIs.
"We saw it in spring training," Pederson said. "We were like ‘Dude we’ve got some guys in our minor-league system who would be a starter for a lot of other organizations right now. They came up and did what they had to do. We’re really deep in our organization."
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That would suggest the World Series question would be asked for the foreseeable for a franchise that defines stability in the regular season. Kershaw and Bellinger insisted nothing has changed, but Muncy had a different take. He has a constant reminder in house with pictures of his 18th-inning home run against the Red Sox in Game 3 of last year’s World Series "hanging all over his house."
"Any time I get to see those pictures," Muncy said. "I get chills thinking about it."
Muncy, however, remembers that moment but is not consumed with the final result. Not this season anyway.
"Last year it was we were one win away from the World Series we need to make sure we’re focused on that and get back to it," Muncy said. "This year, we’ve kind of made the approach that we’re not going to worry about the last two years. We don’t care what happened."
Bellinger agreed with that assessment.
"Little motivation," Bellinger said about the last two years. "Honestly, we don’t think about it much. We’re 100-percent focused on this year, and the past is the past honestly. I don’t think we’ve thought about it that much."
For all the talk about 1988, perhaps this year’s team could look back to 1981. That Dodgers team had six All-Stars in Cleveland — including starter Fernando Valenzuela — and they won the World Series against the New York Yankees in a strike-shortened season. That broke a 16-year championship drought. Hey, New York has the best record in the American League this season.
Not that Los Angeles would look that far ahead. Los Angeles visits Fenway Park on Friday in a matchup of last year’s World Series first.
"We can’t get wrapped up in the whole season," Kershaw said. "We play the Red Sox on Friday. We’ll try to win that game and move on."
