The Los Angeles Dodgers are heading to the National League Division Series to face the Philadelphia Phillies. Dave Roberts and his team eliminated the Cincinnati Reds in two games as they outscored them 18 to nine.
While any team that reaches the postseason has an opportunity to win the World Series, Cincinnati appeared to be one of those teams that were happy to be there. After that, reality set in terms of the talent gap between the Reds and Dodgers.
Could the Mets Have Fared Better Than the Reds?
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Now that the Reds’ 2025 MLB season is over, some ask, would the New York Mets have fared better against Los Angeles? The Mets had a historic collapse in the second half of the season.
All New York needed to do to reach the postseason was win the series against the Miami Marlins, as they ended up with the same 83-79 record as the Reds, but with Cincinnati holding the tiebreaker. Nonetheless, that didn’t happen, resulting in the Reds advancing to the playoffs despite losing their final game of the regular season.
With the Mets have a more talented team than the Reds, would New York have been a scarier threat to the Dodgers? Jon Heyman of the New York Post doesn’t believe so.
“If it makes the Mets feel any better, they wouldn’t have beaten the Dodgers either,” Heyman wrote on X.
The Dodgers Overpowered the Reds
In Game 1, the Dodgers scored 10 runs on the Reds, followed by eight runs in Game 2. Moreover, Los Angeles’ starting pitching was overwhelming as Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto controlled the Reds’ offense.
The Dodgers’ bullpen sometimes scared fans in the series against Cincinnati, but that’s all that was a scare. Could the Mets have done more than the Reds, perhaps? But there’s a reason that New York free-fell to end the season, and there wasn’t going to be a switch they could turn on to eliminate the reigning World Series champions.