Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers bamboozled the Milwaukee Brewers with a rare complete-game win in NLCS Game 2. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
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Each of the four surviving playoff teams can carve at least one new niche in baseball history. Consider these possibilities:
★ The Los Angeles Dodgers are trying to become the first team since the 2001 Yankees to win consecutive World Series – but have to get there first.
★ After leading both leagues with 97 regular-season victories, the Milwaukee Brewers are out to claim their first world championship. They lost in 1982, their own previous brush with the Fall Classic.
★ The Seattle Mariners, a 1977 American League expansion team that filled the void created when the Seattle Pilots became the Milwaukee Brewers after one season, are seeking their first pennant. They are the only one of the 30 existing teams without one, although the Miami Marlins have never finished in first place (they won two world championships as a wild-card team).
★ The Toronto Blue Jays, who began life as an AL expansion entry in 1969, have won the World Series twice – in 1992 and 1993 – but haven’t won anything since.
Most NL Flags
The Dodgers, whose $400 million payroll is the heftiest in baseball history, also rank first with 26 National League pennants (the Yankees won 41 in the American League). Formerly the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers – shortened to Dodgers – the team has eight world championships and 39 playoff appearances.
Last October, they vanquished the favored New York Yankees in a five-game World Series that seemed very one-sided.
Their opponent this fall, the Brewers, is in the post-season for the 11th time (counting tenures in both leagues). But the Brewers fell short of the playoffs last year even after pilfering master strategist Craig Counsell from the rival Chicago Cubs with a five-year, $40 million contract – a record for a manager. The Cubs last won a World Series in 2016 – and only that one in the last 118 years.
Seattle Sizzles
As for Seattle, the Mariners won 116 games, an American League record, in 2001 but were kept out of the World Series by the Yankees. This year’s team added sluggers Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez at the trade deadline, surged in late summer to overtake the Houston Astros in the American League West, and then reached the Championship Series for the fifth time after beating the Detroit Tigers in the AL Division Series. They were eliminated in 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2001 but took a 2–0 lead, winning twice on the road, against the 2025 Blue Jays.
Toronto’s skyline poses a scenic backdrop to Rogers Centre, where the pennant-hungry Blue Jays played the first two games of the AL Championship Series. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Getty Images)
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Toronto has been in the playoffs 11 times in 49 years. In the last 10 seasons, the only Canadian-based club in the majors has pecked its way into the post-season five times. They won a league-high 94 games this season – two shy of their club record from 1992. They also completed a rare worst-to-first rise within the American League East, finishing with the same won-lost record as the Yankees but winning the division title by virtue of winning the season’s series against the Yankees.
Like the Brewers, the Jays missed the playoffs in 2024.
Dodgers Return
Los Angeles, on the other hand, has been a perennial post-season presence. Over the past 10 years, the Dodgers have won 16 playoff series, three of them last fall and three more so far this October. It helps to have three former MVPs – Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman – to occupy the top of the L.A. lineup.
To win a world championship, a team must win the best-of-five Division Series, best-of-seven Championship Series, and four-out-of-seven World Series – plus the best-of-three Wild Card Series unless it earns a “bye” for having one of the league’s top two won-lost records.
For the Dodgers, this is their 13th consecutive playoff appearance, all but one the result of NL West division titles. The Atlanta Braves, not in the 2025 playoffs, still hold the record for most consecutive division titles, 14 from 1991-2005 (a player strike wiped out the 1994 post-season).
Two playoff cities, Milwaukee and Seattle,have overlapping histories. The former began life as the Seattle Pilots, a failed 1969 expansion team acquired by Milwaukee car dealer Bud Selig – later Commissioner of Baseball — and moved to Wisconsin as the Brewers.
When the American League expanded again, it filled the void in the Pacific Northwest by creating the Mariners.
Thus far in the Championship Series, the visiting Mariners and Dodgers have prevailed, overcoming not only tough opponents on the field but raucous partisan crowds.
Los Angeles paralyzed the Brewers with powerful starting pitching – getting gems from both Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto – to twice neutralize the potent lineup of the Brewers at American Family Field.
At the same time, Seattle survived a 15-inning finale in its Division Series against Detroit to throttle Toronto in the first two games at Rogers Centre, sending the ALCS back to the Pacific Northwest.
All playoff teams know there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The winning World Series share last year was $477,441, according to the Associated Press, while the losing player’s share was $354,572.
No team has won a playoff series after losing its first two games at home since the listless Yankees rose from the dead against the Braves in 1996.
That proves anything can happen – even though it hasn’t in a long time.
As Joaquin Andujar said when asked for his one-word decription of baseball, “Youneverknow.”
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