The Dodgers won 106 games this season, led the majors in scoring margin, led the NL in runs scored and team ERA — and still needed to win a do-or-die wild-card game to earn a berth in a Division Series.
Will it be a welcome sight, then, to have the division-winning Giants across the field for the NLDS starting Friday?
“It’s one of those things where we’ve had a lot of success in our division and they had a special year — I guess for us this is kind of the way to settle it,” Walker Buehler, the Dodgers’ Game 1 starting pitcher, said Thursday. “But we’re happy to be here and happy to still be in the playoffs and look forward to playing these five games.”
“This is two of the historic organizations in the game, and it’s fun,” said Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen. “It’s fun playing in the rivalry and tomorrow we’ll be ready for it.”
The rivalry in recent years held lesser stakes. In 2019, the Dodgers also won 106 games and won the NL West by 21 games. This season, they spent a total of three days after May 1 in first place — held off by a Giants team that finished with a franchise-record 107 wins after four straight losing seasons.
“We’ve been two of the best teams all year in baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So to see us go head-to-head in this series, it’s really exciting for our players and just kind of seeing how our guys will respond.”
The teams jockeyed down the stretch. The Dodgers went 16-2 from Aug. 7-26 and gained 1½ games in the division standings. They finished on an 18-3 run and, again, made up just 1½ games.
“It shows that they want it,” Jansen said of the Giants. “You can tell that. Everybody talked about the Dodgers and the Padres, and they have that chip on their shoulder, and you can see that. And that’s what they’ve been doing the whole year, I feel like watching them from the other side. And they’ve been having an unbelievable season. So for us, we know who we are and how good we are; it’s just to prepare and go against them and enjoy the game.”
Roberts noted the teams’ close season series: the Giants won 10 of 19 meetings while the Dodgers held a slight scoring edge totaling 80 runs to the Giants’ 78.
“There’s a few (Giants) players as far as the pitching side that we’re not too familiar with,” Roberts said. “But we have a little familiarity with these guys and I think conversely they have pretty much seen our hand. There’s not a whole lot of tricks.”
Buehler did face the Giants often — six times, going 3-1 with a 2.19 ERA. He allowed three earned runs in the first five starts combined before the Giants reached him for six in three innings on Sept. 5.
“They know me and we know them,” Buehler said. “The last one against them wasn’t great, but I felt good about the ones before that. So we’ll figure it out.”
Other ties abound in the series. Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was previously the Dodgers’ GM and Giants manager Gabe Kapler their director of player development. Roberts ended his playing career with two seasons with San Francisco.
“I think there’s certainly a mutual like and certain mutual respect from people to the organizations,” Roberts said. “But outside of that, we’re trying to win a series, and they’re in our way.”
Matt Kawahara is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mkawahara@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @matthewkawahara
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October 08, 2021 at 09:21AM
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Dodgers welcome 'exciting' playoff matchup with Giants - San Francisco Chronicle
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