Which team has the edge? Scouts break down the Dodgers and Giants
- Joined ESPN in 2016 to cover the Los Angeles Rams
- Previously covered the Angels for MLB.com
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants each have 28 regular-season games remaining, and yet only three of those — beginning Friday night at Oracle Park — will come against each other.
It tells you everything you need to know about how the National League West has evolved.
The Giants weren’t supposed to be here. This was another transition year under team president Farhan Zaidi, one in which the Giants would mostly tread water. Meanwhile, the Dodgers would be locking horns with another budding rival — the San Diego Padres, a team L.A. is scheduled to play six more times this month, including at the end of it.
But the Padres have faded, fighting now not for the division title but for a wild-card spot, and the NL West has become a two-team race between two historic rivals who couldn’t be more closely matched heading into their final meeting.
The Dodgers and Giants enter with identical, major league-leading 85-49 records thanks to a recent surge by the latter and a rare stumble by the former. And the season series couldn’t possibly be tighter.
Head-to-head wins: Dodgers 8, Giants 8
Head-to-head runs: Dodgers 68, Giants 68
Eleven of those 16 games were decided by three runs or fewer, four featured a disappearing lead in the ninth and one, on May 28, saw Mike Tauchman rob Albert Pujols of a walk-off home run. Max Muncy flipped his bat on May 27, Kenley Jansen walked a tightrope on June 29, Dave Roberts blew a gasket on July 22 and Cody Bellinger threw wide on July 27.
The Dodgers, winners of eight consecutive division titles, and the Giants, five years removed from their last winning season, are each on pace for triple-digit wins and are tracking toward a potential division series showdown. In the divisional era, which dates back to 1969, there have been only four instances of multiple 100-win teams residing within the same division, according to ESPN Stats & Information:
2018 AL East: Red Sox (108), Yankees (100)
2001 AL West: Mariners (116), Athletics (102)
1993 NL West: Braves (104), Giants (103)
1980 AL East: Yankees (103), Orioles (100)
The 1980 Orioles and the 1993 Giants went home immediately after superlative regular seasons, while the 2001 A’s were granted a best-of-five series and the 2018 Yankees were promised only a one-game playoff. The latter fate awaits either the Dodgers or Giants, playing under what might be the final year of this playoff format. Failing to win this division means having to win a sudden-death game for the right to advance into a larger sample size.
Given those stakes, and how evenly matched they’ve been to date, we solicited the help of a handful of scouts to determine which team has the edge in five key areas.
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