For the fourth straight season, the Los Angeles Dodgers are ending the year at the top of the NL West.
The Dodgers clinched the NL West division title with a 8-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday. Los Angeles becomes the latest team to clinch a division spot in the 2025 MLB playoffs, joining the NL Central-winning Milwaukee Brewers and NL East-winning Philadelphia Phillies.
The win brings the Dodgers to 90 wins, with a 90-69 overall record. It marks the 12th time in 13 seasons that the Dodgers have won the division, further cementing the team’s recent dominance.
The Dodgers’ dominant win was helped by a stellar, two-homer night from first baseman Freddie Freeman, who hit a solo bomb in the first inning and a two-run homer in the fourth.
L.A.’s victory was also boosted by Shohei Ohtani’s 54th home run of the year, as the two-way threat sent the ball into the outfield pool in Arizona. The homer ties Ohtani’s career high, which he hit last season.
With Thursday’s win, the San Diego Padres — who are second in the division — move to 3.5 games back of Los Angeles, with three games left in the regular season.
The Dodgers officially clinched a playoff spot last week, during Clayton Kershaw’s final regular-season start. Kershaw, who has spent his entire 18 year-career with the Dodgers, will retire at the end of the 2025 season.
Despite winning the division, Los Angeles will not have a bye in the first round of the postseason: The Dodgers are four games back of the Phillies and seven games back of the Milwaukee Brewers, who currently hold the best record in the league.
The division title comes a bit later than one might’ve expected from a Dodgers superteam, after a couple of several late losses since throughout September. The Dodgers’ bullpen, which has been a consistent problem this month, gave up the first matchup in the series against the Diamondbacks.
The bullpen nearly blew it again on Wednesday for the second game: That near-trainwreck saw a stunning eight L.A. pitchers take the mound before the Dodgers eventually pulled out a 5-4 win. Rookie starter Roki Sasaki, who has been out since May with a shoulder injury, stepped in for a relief appearance, and was joined by Kershaw, who went back in as a reliever.
Longer-term, the bullpen is certainly something that the Dodgers will need to focus on for the playoffs, as is the issue of All-Star catcher Will Smith, who may or may not be able to return for the postseason. But Los Angeles has held strong enough to secure the division and move into October with relative ease.
The Dodgers will travel to the Pacific Northwest to play the Seattle Mariners, who clinched the AL West on Wednesday, in the final series before the postseason.
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