A cool 100 mph is attainable for multiple members of a talented pitching staff that figures to be the key for reaching a triple digit of a different kind as the season moves toward its completion.
The MLB record for team wins in a regular season is 116 and was achieved twice, although neither of those teams grabbed the ultimate prize.
Already in 2025, the Dodgers have shown that getting to 116 wins and beyond is well within reach.
The Dodgers opened their season with a pair of wins on two different continents, improving to 4-0 at the start of a season for the first time since 1981, when they won the World Series.
The last time a club won 116 games in a regular season was in 2001, when the Seattle Mariners hit rarefied air. The only other time it happened was in 1906, when the Chicago Cubs pulled off the feat while playing just 152 games of their 154-game regular season.
For both, the regular-season achievement was as good as it would get. The Mariners lost in the American League Championship Series in 2001, while the Cubs lost the 1906 World Series.
For this year’s Dodgers, becoming the first team to reach 117 wins would merely be a side note, even with the history attached. Being the first team to win back-to-back titles since 2000 is the aim.
There are an abundance of reasons why repeating is so hard, but prevailing sentiment is that the hunger to dig a little deeper subsides. It’s natural. Another instinct is to go on the defensive as champion instead of taking charge.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts moved to address the latter concept in a team meeting when the team arrived at spring training. Be the hunter, Roberts stressed to his team, not the hunted.
Players have elected to make 2025 an extension of 2024, when they used their downtime between the regular season and the start of their playoff run to gather at Dodger Stadium for long hours each day.
There was work on the field taking place, but the team took it a step further by having catered lunches and dinners as a group each day. The idea was to stress that the road ahead would be a shared experience, not an individual one.
And while the San Diego Padres nearly derailed the Dodgers’ path in the National League Division Series by forcing their rival to win two consecutive games or go home, it was a mutual trust that got Los Angeles to its goal.
While it is a simplified version of events, the Dodgers believe their bonding week before last year’s playoffs made a difference. Never underestimate a group that believes it is on to something.
What the Dodgers and Roberts were able to do was turn a patchwork pitching staff into a winner by using just three starters and a procession of relievers to first get through the Padres before dispatching the New York Mets and New York Yankees.
Injuries left Roberts with limited starting pitching options, with the bullpen able to step up in a time of need. The Dodgers addressed both areas in the offseason, bringing aboard Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki to bulk up the rotation and Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates to fortify the bullpen.
At some point this season, the Dodgers could have as many as 10 working starters at their disposal, considering that three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw is expected to be back by mid-summer, Shohei Ohtani is in line to resume a pitching schedule as early as May, and All-Star Tony Gonsolin is making his way back soon. Young pitchers like Bobby Miller, Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski could get a chance or two to start.
The Dodgers did win as many as 111 games in 2022 and have hit the century mark five times in the previous eight seasons—seven not counting the shortened pandemic season of 2020. The triple digit now in their sights is 117.
“We just don’t quit,” Roberts said after the Dodgers rallied for an 8-5 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Friday with five runs in the 10th inning. Mookie Betts hit two home runs after he nearly missed the series because of a two-week illness caused by a stomach virus.
“As bleak as it might look at times, we keep competing and put at-bats together,” Roberts said.
While the current season is young, the championship energy is evident. Keeping it through another six months will be a challenge, and there are some concerns, like a shaky bullpen, but so far, traffic on the road to 117 has been light.
