The Los Angeles Dodgers are no strangers to pressure, rivalries, and postseason narratives. As the 2025 MLB playoffs loom, the Dodgers find themselves at the crossroads of old grudges, fresh motivation, and the ever-present quest for another World Series title. With a best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Cincinnati Reds set to begin on October 1, there’s no time for rest—literally, as the team has just one day off before the action begins.
For Dodgers fans, the postseason has always carried its own brand of drama. Recent years have been especially turbulent, with the team grappling with the impact of Major League Baseball’s new postseason format. Since 2022, the top two teams in each league have received a five-day break before the playoffs, a change intended to reward regular-season excellence. Yet, for the Dodgers, that break has felt more like a curse than a blessing.
“I guess when this team lost back-to-back DS’s against the Padres and D-backs, that was the narrative – that the bye week cooled us, them off,” Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernandez told reporters, referencing the team’s first-round exits in 2022 and 2023. Hernandez, who spent 2022 with the Boston Red Sox, knows a thing or two about postseason intensity. He added, “Now, we don’t have an excuse. We did it to ourselves. We were very inconsistent throughout the year, and here we are.”
Indeed, the Dodgers’ path to the postseason this year has been anything but smooth. After a sluggish midseason stretch—going just 22-32 over two months—the team found its groove late, winning 15 of their last 20 games. That late surge, however, wasn’t enough to clinch a division title or a coveted first-round bye. Instead, the Dodgers will have to battle through the Wild Card round, a scenario that manager Dave Roberts sees as both a challenge and an opportunity.
“Just understanding how much of the season was left, raising the level of play, the heightened focus. It’s stark,” Roberts admitted when asked about the team’s late-season turnaround. “I guess I have a little more grace for the long baseball season. But yeah, you can just see – there’s no denying the way that we’re playing, understanding what’s at stake and the timing of it.”
For Roberts, the struggle to maintain postseason-level intensity throughout a grueling 162-game season is very real. “Guys get to a certain place of adrenaline and intensity that most don’t experience when you’re talking about the postseason and winning the World Series. It’s hard to simulate that any time outside of the stretch, stretch run or the postseason,” he explained. “At the end of the day, these guys are human beings. To try to manufacture that is just hard to do.”
First baseman Freddie Freeman echoed his manager’s sentiments, pointing out the unpredictability of baseball’s long campaign. “Every season is not gonna go how you think it’s gonna go in spring training,” Freeman said. While preseason projections painted the Dodgers as a “super team,” reality proved far more complicated, with several players falling short of expectations—including newly acquired relief pitcher Tanner Scott. Roberts, however, remains optimistic about Scott’s chances for redemption. “He potentially has the opportunity to make it all go away by showing his best in the postseason,” Roberts said. “I could spit out six or seven names pretty easily, and that’s the great thing about the postseason. Moments and opportunities present themselves and how you perform. People remember those moments.”
Third baseman Max Muncy knows all too well how difficult it can be to “flip the switch” when October arrives. “You would kind of hope that we’ve flipped that switch earlier versus having to try to flip a switch in the middle of a series,” Muncy commented. “I think we’ve dealt with that in the past where you try to flip that switch against a team that’s already been through the fire of a Wild Card Series. It’s really tough to do. Hopefully for us, we’ve been able to flip that switch in the last week or two and just carry that momentum into this series.”
While the Dodgers prepare for the Reds, the specter of postseason rivalries looms large. The team’s historic rivalry with the San Francisco Giants is well documented, but in recent years, the San Diego Padres have emerged as perhaps the more aggressive adversary. Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts, who joined the team ahead of the 2020 season, recently shared his perspective on these West Coast battles.
“I would say San Diego probably has more aggression towards the Dodgers,” Betts told Adam Weinrib of FanSided. “San Francisco, to me, it’s they just don’t like the Dodgers… It’s probably from half the fans have probably moved from LA to San Francisco, and vice versa, and so that’s where a lot of it probably stems from and obviously the years prior, right?” Betts added, “But now, since I’ve been a Dodger, San Diego’s been good. I didn’t know San Diego when they weren’t as good. I think San Diego has more of a hatred towards the Dodgers, but it makes it fun, man. It makes it fun, that’s why I think that the atmosphere is tough to play in just because these people genuinely don’t like us and I think it’s enjoyable.”
Since Betts’ arrival, the Dodgers and Padres have clashed in three National League Division Series, each encounter brimming with tension and high stakes. The Giants, of course, remain the Dodgers’ oldest and most storied rivals, but recent history suggests that the Padres’ rivalry may be the one to watch. Any chance of an October rematch this year would only come in the National League Championship Series due to current postseason seeding—a tantalizing prospect for fans on both sides.
But before any talk of NLCS showdowns or rekindled rivalries, the Dodgers must focus on the task at hand: the Cincinnati Reds. The Wild Card round offers no margin for error, and with just one day to prepare, the Dodgers will need to summon every ounce of focus and intensity. For players like Tanner Scott and others seeking postseason redemption, the next few weeks could define their careers.
As the postseason dawns, the Dodgers are keenly aware of what’s at stake. The ghosts of recent October disappointments linger, but so does the memory of last year’s World Series triumph. The road ahead is uncertain, but one thing’s for sure: the Dodgers are ready to write the next chapter in their storied history, starting with a high-stakes Wild Card battle at Chavez Ravine.
