The Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t living down losing the NLDS, and pundits are analyzing what could’ve led to it, including blaming umps.
The Los Angeles Dodgers aren’t living down losing the NLDS to the San Diego Padres. They appeared to be practically guaranteed a spot at the World Series with the best record of the regular season, and San Diego should’ve been an ‘easy’ team for them to take down.
Pundits are now questioning the umpires for inaccurately calling the strike zone. Dusty Baker of KSBY Tweeted, “I’m not even joking, the MLB needs to do a way better screening process of which umpires deserve to be behind the dish. The strike zone in this Dodgers Padres series has been an absolute travesty.”
However, looking at the ump scorecards, the results seemed to be consistent across the board. In the Dodgers’ Game 1 5-3 win, Tripp Gibson was the ump and had 93 percent overall accuracy and 94 percent overall consistency, which line up with league average. His ball accuracy was 91 percent, slightly below average, and strike accuracy was 95 percent, decently above average.
This was actually worse than a game that Los Angeles just barely lost. In Game 3, the Dodgers lost 2-1 and the ump was Mark Carlson. Carlson called the game with more accuracy than average with 96 percent overall accuracy and consistency, 97 percent ball accuracy and 92 percent strike accuracy.
The other two games had similar calls to Game 1, aside from the Game 4 strike accuracy that was six percent below average. The calls gave the Padres a +1.14 run advantage, but with a 5-3 loss for the Dodgers, San Diego was already on track to win without it.
Whether or not Game 4 was called accurately doesn’t undermine the fact that the Dodgers are still flawed.
Dodgers could’ve been successful in the postseason, but came up short
Sometimes things don’t go as planned. That’s a massively accurate statement in this postseason. The Dodgers got knocked out by a team that didn’t won a series against them in the 2022 regular season. They have a team of All-Stars, but the underdogs rose above to knock them out.
Meanwhile, in the other NLDS series, the Philadelphia Phillies did essentially the same thing against the defending World Series champions, the Atlanta Braves. In a perfect world that takes into account the regular season standings, the Braves and the Dodgers would be facing each other in the NLCS. However, that’s not always the case.
The Padres were inconsistent this season, but they made a lot of moves that proved them capable of success. They have great players like Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Josh Hader, Joe Musgrove, Trent Grisham and Mike Clevinger, to name a few. Their farm system was so good that it allowed them to land Soto at the trade deadline, a feat that the Washington Nationals made nearly impossible.
The Padres also haven’t been to the NLCS since 1998. Prior, they hadn’t even been to the playoffs since 2006 (excluding the shortened 2020 season). The Dodgers have had plenty of playoff visits over the years, making an appearance every year since 2013 and even winning the World Series in 2020.
San Diego was hungry for success, whereas Los Angeles has had several opportunities at it lately. The Dodgers are undeniably an incredible team with some of the best talent in the league, but the Padres rightfully earned their spot in the NLCS.