LOS ANGELES — For much of the Dodgers' dugout, there was nothing left to see. Only a few players stood on the top step of their third-base dugout, arms draped over the rails they had climbed over in celebration far more often than leaned against in defeat for the 10 years. Those rails weren't used to that.
So, most didn't give them that indignity. Because this veteran group knows the climb. Knows defeat, too, believe it or not, even after spending the better part of a decade ruling baseball like emperors.
There was no need to watch the Brewers, a young club that had just swept the sport's Goliath in four games, celebrate their conquest on Los Angeles soil. So the Dodgers gathered their equipment after Thursday's 6-4 loss in Game 4, disappeared down the dugout steps and retreated into their clubhouse to lick wounds that winning had long allowed them to forget. "We came up short," Freddie Freeman said.
We grind for eight months to come up short. Near the end, it really does hurt. Sometimes you just get outplayed." Outplayed?
That wasn't supposed to be part of the Dodgers' vocabulary. Not after two straight years of governing baseball with an iron grip, bending the sport to their will on the way to back-to-back World Series titles. For this decade, beginning with Mookie Betts in February 2020 and culminating with Tarik Skubal in August 2026, this behemoth, collectively, bought, traded for and developed talent better than anyone else in the sport.
Dodger blue meant blueprint. Because that's what they were. But nothing in sports is inevitable.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
