The Dodgers finished the final 54 games of the 2026 season with 32 wins, a run that points to a team that steadied itself after a seven-game losing streak two games into that stretch. The surge did not erase the wobble, but it did leave them with a 96-win pace over the final third and enough momentum to matter when October arrived.
That is why the Sasaki Dodgers search has real weight now: the late-season numbers show a club that kept winning while pieces moved in and out of the lineup. Mookie Betts led the offense in that span with a.298/.377/.525 line, 10 home runs and 15 doubles, while Freddie Freeman played nearly every day despite a right knee injury in September and finished with only one home run over the final third. Max Muncy stayed steady, Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker picked up in the final month, and Josue De Paula made the most of a two-week runway after his debut.
But the story of the last 54 games was as much about absence as production. Will Smith and Dalton Rushing were both out for extended periods, and the catching situation kept changing: Ben Rortvedt and Hunter Feduccia were reacquired at the trade deadline and handled the position for most of August before Smith returned in September and got back to his normal production level. Rushing did not catch after August 1, suffered a partially torn UCL in his right elbow, then aggravated the elbow during throwing drills in the first week of September. He had just eight plate appearances over the final eight weeks. Shohei Ohtani did not homer after August 18, went on the injured list in September, and did not pitch at all in the final third. Andy Pages also missed four weeks after being hit by a fastball on his left hand, while Tommy Edman, Kiké Hernández, Miguel Rojas and Alex Call all struggled.
The turnaround on the mound explains why the finish looked stronger than the early skid. Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto combined for a 2.49 ERA and a 30.3-percent strikeout rate in 33 starts over the final 54 games, with 21 quality starts in that span. The bullpen got healthier too, as Evan Phillips and Brock Stewart returned after missing last postseason following surgeries, and Tanner Scott, Edgardo Henriquez, Alex Vesia and Jack Dreyer helped carry the relief work.
That pitching backbone is what carried over once the games started to matter most. In Game 1 of the NLDS, Skubal retired 15 in a row and struck out seven in six strong innings in a Dodgers win over the Braves, a line that fit the way the team closed the regular season. Blake Snell was set to start Game 2, and the Dodgers entered with the kind of late-season form that made their first rough week look like an interruption rather than a warning.
