Dodgers’ History with Wild Card Round
With the Wild Card Series starting tomorrow, let's look back at the previous round the Dodgers have been a part of…
LOS ANGELES, CA—Now that the 2025 Major League Baseball regular season is over, the postseason has begun, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in the dance for a 13th consecutive season.
Despite winning the National League West over the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers finished with the third-best record in the National League, meaning they’d have to play a best-of-three Wild Card Series at Dodger Stadium starting tomorrow.
Since the Wild Card format for the postseason was created in 1994, it has undergone multiple changes, adding more teams and excitement to the game.
After the 2021 season, Major League Baseball ditched the popular single-game elimination Wild Card format, now moving toward a three-game series.
This will be the Dodgers’ first Wild Card appearance under the new format and just the third time in the franchise’s history that the team will be playing in the round, with the others being 2020, 2021, and now 2025.
2020 NL Wild Card Series vs Brewers
The Dodgers’ first Wild Card appearance occurred during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season, and despite finishing with the best record in the league at 43-17, every team was forced to play a three-game Wild Card Series.
The Dodgers would host the Milwaukee Brewers, who remain the only team in MLB history to make the postseason with a sub-.500 record.
The Dodgers dominated the Brew Crew, sweeping them in two games thanks to solid performances by right-handed pitcher Walker Buehler in Game One and lefty Clayton Kershaw in Game Two.
It was the first series win of four that October, as the Dodgers would go on to win their first championship since the 1988 season.
2021 NL Wild Card Game vs Cardinals
Just a year after winning the World Series, the Dodgers went to set a franchise record with 106 regular-season wins, but that was not enough to outpace their National League West rival, the San Francisco Giants, who finished with 107.
Gone was last year’s Wild Card Series format, and the Dodgers had to face the St. Louis Cardinals in a winner-take-all Wild Card Game.
The game would remain tied 1-1 until the 9th inning, until a walk-off two-run home run off the bat of Chris Taylor would give the Dodgers the thrilling victory.
The team would then go on to eliminate the Giants in the National League Division Series in five games before falling to the eventual 2021 World Series Champion Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series.
2025 NL Wild Card Series vs Reds
The third Wild Card appearance for Los Angeles will begin this week against the Cincinnati Reds. It’ll be the first time the Dodgers are playing in the new, revamped format, which was introduced in 2022.
Since the Dodgers secured a National League West title, their 12th in thirteen seasons, they were awarded the number three seed in the National League and home-field advantage for the series.
It’ll be the first postseason appearance for the Reds since 2020 and their first in a full season since 2013.
The winner of the series will head to Philadelphia for the National League Division Series.
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