NLDS Preview: Three Keys to Watch in the Padres-Dodgers Series
This year’s MLB division series Ire overflowing with intriguing regional rivalries, including a battle between the Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers and a showdown between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets.
However, none of those teams have played each other in the postseason. This will be the third playoff series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres in the past five years, and it will be a doozy—the Padres finished just five games back of the first-place Dodgers, the narrowest gap between the two teams in any of this round’s matchups.
Los Angeles swept San Diego in the 2020 NLDS, but the Padres scored a measure of revenge with a four-game victory in the 2022 NLDS. The rubber match is set to commence Saturday, with San Diego pitcher Dylan Cease toeing the rubber against the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Here’s a look at three story lines to keep an eye on in what figures to be a closely watched series.
1. What will the Dodgers’ rotation look like?
Los Angeles has spent much of 2024 piecing together a rotation with duct tape. Seventeen different pitchers made starts for the Dodgers this season (for a point of comparison, the Padres used just eight starting pitchers). Injuries have been the primary culprit for Los Angeles’s instability, and many accounts of the Dodgers’ pitching woes neglect the fact that the team’s best hurler—designated hitter Shohei Ohtani—isn’t pitching this season.
