I promised a friend I would write about this because he is a huge LA Dodgers fan and he was absolutely heartbroken that they would be eliminated from the playoffs after such a spectacular season. While I didn't watch any of the games I would get told about them from my friend and how excited he was, especially during the early season, when it appeared to him and many experts that they were the best team in all MLB.
Well they got eliminated from the playoffs in 3 straight games by the Arizona Snakes..... I mean Diamondbacks
src
Like I said in the title. I don't care. I don't really enjoy watching baseball and the stats are so profoundly huge that I don't get much enjoyment out of that either. I don't even understand a great deal of them despite having been exposed to baseball my entire life and living in a city that has two professional teams.
But I do want to talk about how this sort of regular season dominance doesn't necessarily mean that the post season is going to have the same thing happen in it. A lot of sports are all about playing the long game and resting certain players for clutch moments and I guess the Dodgers just didn't do that correctly.
One big moment that stands out for me is what seems like ages ago when the Carolina Panthers (my favorite NFL team) was absolutely dominating the regular season. This was all the way back in 2015 and Panther fans were on cloud 9.
src
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/66253582/501240874.jpg.0.jpg){kind=link}
The Panthers had completed a feat that is rarely seen in any sport, including American football. They went the entire season and only lost 1 game. Other teams were very afraid of playing them and not only did they win almost all their games but they normally did it in glorious fashion and the only reason why the scores weren't more of a blowout was because the Panthers were so far ahead that it was impossible for them to lose. Therefore they would sub in their 2nd or 3rd string players to get some practice I guess. There was speculation that their only loss of the regular season happened because they no longer needed to win any more games to get the number 1 seed in the playoffs and therefore didn't field their best team. They lost to the Atlanta Falcons which was a team that just 2 weeks earlier Carolina had easily dispatched 38-0.
The easily won their division, they blazed through their playoff games including beating the Cardinals 49-15 in the semi-final. Things looked amazing for them in the Super Bowl and it appeared to be a dead lock. Carolina was a massive favorite to win the Super Bowl and almost no one was suggesting that their opponents, the Denver Broncos, stood a chance at all.
But then something really strange happened: The Panther team that took the field didn't play like the Panther team did in the rest of the season. The things that they normally did with regularity just weren't working. The couldn't "buy a bucket" as the saying goes.
src
The defense was unable to protect Cam Newton and he was sacked several times including one time that resulted in a fumble that would all but seal the loss for the Panthers. A fumble is never a good thing, but when there is a chance that you might be mounting a comeback to take the lead and then it happens, it just breaks your heart. The Broncos would end up scoring another touchdown after that fumble and from that point forward all Carolina hopes were crushed.
Nobody saw this coming and a lesson was learned. Just because your regular season makes it look like nobody can touch you ANY team can have a bad game or in the cast of the Dodgers, 3 bad games in a row.