The San Diego Padres take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the final division rival League Division Series. The teams met in the NLDS every other year since 2020, Los Angeles coming out on top in the their World Championship season of 2020, while the Padres advanced to the NLCS in 2022.
The offensive side of the equation favors the Dodgers:
| 2024 Batting (NL Ranks) | Padres | Dodgers |
| Runs per Game | 4.69 (6th) | 5.20 (2nd) |
| Batting Average | .263 (2nd) | .258 (3rd) |
| On-Base Average | .324 (5th) | .335 (2nd) |
| Slugging Percentage | .420 (4th) | .446 (1st) |
| Home Runs | 190 (6th) | 233 (1st) |
| Stolen Base Percentage | 81.1 (8th) | 85.5 (1st) |
| BABIP | .295 (7th) | .297 (6th) |
This table serves as another nice example of batting average being disconnected from overall offense. The Padres come up five points ahead of the Dodgers in BA, but trail by eleven points in OBP and twenty six points in slugging. That put the Dodgers half a run ahead of San Diego in runs per game.
That 5.20 R/G might be an underestimation for LA. Mookie Betts missed game from June 17th though August 11th. In that time, Shohei Ohtani moved into the leadoff slot, and hit .280/.390/.651 with 16 home runs, which is really good. Once Betts returned, and started batting second, Ohtani hit .339/.402/.721 with 19 home runs! Teams were less likely to pitch around Ohtani with Betts waiting on deck. Betts hit .263/.314/.497 behind Ohtani with nineteen of his 44 hits going for extra bases.
Note that the Padres offense might be underestimated as well, as it took Manny Machado a couple of months to find his groove as he recovered from a 2023 injury.
The pitching and defense side of the equation favors the Padres:
| 2024 Pitching and Defense (NL Ranks) | Padres | Dodgers |
| Runs Allowed per Game | 4.13 (3rd) | 4.23 (6th) |
| Earned Run Average | 3.86 (5th) | 3.90 (6th) |
| Strikeouts per 9 IP | 9.1 (2nd) | 8.7 (6th) |
| Walks per 9 IP | 2.9 (4th) | 3.1 (8th) |
| Home Runs per 200 IP | 23.5 (6th) | 27.4 (13th) |
| Defensive Efficiency | .697 (6th) | .710 (1st) |
While all the numbers except defensive efficiency favor the Padres, they don’t favor San Diego by that much. We do have another matchup of a great home run hitting team against a pitching staff that is pretty good at preventing home runs. Pretty good isn’t great, however, so the Dodgers should still be able to take the Padres deep.
This series reminds me a bit of the 1974 NBA finals between the Celtics and the Bucks. Boston decided they could not stop Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and didn’t try. They concentrated on stopping everyone else. Jabbar averaged 32.6 points per game, but the Celtics won the series 4-3. Game six went into over time, the Bucks winning by a point, but both Jabbar and Oscar Robertson played 58 minutes. Two days later Robertson was still spent, and the Celtics won in a blowout.
So maybe the Padres strategy should be don’t worry about Ohtani, but stop everyone else. Betts and Freeman weren’t quite as fearsome as in the past, and the Dodgers also lack the top to bottom lineup depth we’ve seen for the past decade.
In the end, the Dodgers do appear to be the better team, but like the other series, I can make them a prohibitive favorite. I give Los Angeles as 52% chance of winning the series.