The Dodgers made it official Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park, beating the Reds 8-2 to reclaim the NL West title for a fifth straight year. It came just three days after the club popped champagne for clinching a playoff spot, and this time the clubhouse celebration carried extra weight — a division banner the team hopes is only the first prize of several still to come this fall.

President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the grind of a long season can make it hard to see the bigger picture, but that this group has pushed through its share of setbacks and is now turning its full attention to October. Manager Dave Roberts has made peace with the pressure that comes with the job, noting that in Los Angeles, anything short of a championship is treated as falling short of the standard.

Kyle Tucker carried the offense with a four-hit, three-RBI afternoon, coming up a triple short of the franchise’s first cycle since 2017. Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, Josue De Paula and Miguel Rojas all chipped in RBIs of their own to back a bullpen day on the mound: Justin Wrobleski opened with three perfect innings, Landon Knack worked four scoreless frames around a Blake Treinen solo homer allowed, and Seth Halvorsen closed things out despite giving up a run in the ninth.

Pro Merch Pick

Gear Up in Dodger Blue

Browse the full Los Angeles Dodgers collection

Banged Up, Still Rolling

With nine games left on the regular-season slate, the Dodgers are doing this without their full roster. Shohei Ohtani sits on the 15-day injured list alongside first-time All-Star Andy Pages, and a six-man rotation carried for most of the year has been trimmed to four healthy, stretched-out starters — part of why Thursday turned into a bullpen game in the first place. Max Muncy summed up the pattern that’s carried the team through the last few seasons: when key players go down, someone else has consistently stepped up to cover the gap.

Pro Merch Pick

More Ways to Rep the Blue Crew

See page 4 of the Dodgers shop

The Dodgers are expecting reinforcements before October and would love to lock up a first-round bye, which would send them straight into the NL Division Series with five extra days of rest. Right now they hold a four-game cushion over Atlanta for the National League’s No. 2 seed.

Chasing a Three-Peat

This roster isn’t perfect — but then again, neither were the back-to-back champions of 2024 and 2025. Having already become the first team in 25 years to successfully defend a title, the Dodgers are now chasing something baseball hasn’t seen since the Yankees’ 1998-2000 run: three straight World Series championships.

Deadline addition Tarik Skubal wasn’t around for Roberts’ spring training message about staying locked on the present, but he got a feel for it firsthand after arriving in the middle of a season-high seven-game losing streak. What he found was a clubhouse that didn’t panic, which he believes is exactly why this group tends to hold up when the games get tightest. Mookie Betts put it simply: it’s the same goal and largely the same group every year, and the job now is to stop overthinking the path and just get back to where they’ve been before.

Pro Merch Pick

Get Ready for the Chase

Shop new arrivals for the stretch run

Reporting via MLB.com.