Dodgers Chase Magic Number, Not Rivals
A 14-game division lead has turned the NL West race into arithmetic, not competition.
The Dodgers moved to 60-32 on Monday night, the first team in the majors to reach 60 wins this season, and they open a series Wednesday against a last-place Rockies club sitting 23 games under .500. Dalton Rushing's walk-off single in the 11th sealed the 8-7 win, with Shohei Ohtani chipping in his 299th career homer along the way. This is no longer a division race. It's a coronation with a magic number attached.
The lead isn't just comfortable, it's absurd. Dodgers Digest pegged it at 14 games over Colorado heading into the series, big enough that beat writers noted every last-place team in the American League sits closer to first than San Diego and Arizona do in the NL West right now.
That gap turns games back into an afterthought. The number that matters is the magic number, and it was already down to 60 when the Dodgers sat at 59-31 two days before this series opened. Every Dodgers win or Padres/Diamondbacks loss chips at it from here to the All-Star break.
Health is the only variable left. Evan Phillips is back in the bullpen off rotator cuff rehab, and the Dodgers cleared a 40-man spot by releasing Jake Eder, standard midsummer roster maintenance for a club built to survive the grind into October.