The Dodgers won the most games in franchise history in 2022, posting a remarkable 111-51 record that outpaced the next-best team by five games, the next-best in the National League by 10, and the next-best in the NL West by 22. Every time they accomplished something worth celebrating, the celebrations were marked by the same thing: every player saying something along the lines of, “This is nice, but it’s not our ultimate goal.”
Now, the Dodgers head into the NL Division Series beginning on Tuesday against that “next-best in the NL West” team, the San Diego Padres, who won just 89 games in the regular season but delivered a knockout punch to the Mets in the Wild Card Series in New York, defeating them two games to one.