The Dodgers have started each of their three postseason series in 2025 by winning the first two games, which is a big reason why they are back in the World Series, the first defending champion to make
it back to the Fall Classic in 16 years. This World Series will be their third consecutive series starting on the road, trying to join a select group that followed that path to a title.
Last season the Dodgers finished with the best record in baseball at 98-64, which earned them home-field advantage in all three series they played. This year their route was different by virtue of finishing with 93 wins, only the fifth-best record in baseball. Thus far they beat the teams with the two best records, dispatching the 96-win Phillies in the NLDS and sweeping the 97-win Brewers in the NLCS. Next up are the 94-win Blue Jays, likely the Dodgers’ toughest test yet.
Starting on the road in three consecutive postseason series only became possible with an expanded postseason, which included the advent of the Division Series since 1995 as well as the one-off divisional round in 1981 after the regular season was split into halves after the labor stoppage.
That’s 32 years of chances for a team to start on the road for each of the Division Series, League Championship Series, and World Series. The Dodgers are only the 13th team to follow this path, the third team in the last four seasons to do so along with the 2022 Philadelphia Phillies and 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks.
Those Phillies and D-backs were also on the road for the wild card series, as were the San Francisco Giants in the wild card game in 2014. Philadelphia and Arizona lost their World Series while the Giants won it, one of only four teams to win a championship after starting the Division Series, LCS, and World Series all on the road, along with the 2003 Florida Marlins, 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, and 2019 Washington Nationals.
Three of the four teams that won the World Series were wild card teams, with only the Cardinals in 2006 a division winner from this quartet despite at 83-78 owning the worst record of this baker’s dozen of teams. The Dodgers are only the fourth division winner with this road-heavy path to the World Series, along with Cleveland in 1997, the Padres in 1998, and the 2006 Cardinals.
Of the first 12 teams to start the final three rounds on the road, the 2019 Nationals are the only one to win the first two games of the World Series on the road. That was quite the bizarre series, against Houston, in which the road team won all seven games. Washington that year relied heavily on its starting rotation, with Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, and Anibal Sánchez accounting for 63 percent of the innings, with a 3.63 ERA.
This year’s Dodgers rotation has been even stingier, and holds their best path to another championship. Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start Games 1 and 2, trying to get them off to yet another strong start on the road.
