Inside the Dodgers' collapse: Why baseball's winningest team isn't in the World Series

Dave Roberts walked out to the mound once, then again, in the seventh inning, two lonely treks with his team's season on the brink.

The first time, the Dodgers still had a lead. They were still nine outs away from a season-saving win in Game 4 of the National League Division Series. They still had all their October goals within reach.

By the manager's second visit, however, the score was tied, the San Diego Padres were threatening, and the Dodgers were suddenly hanging by a thread.

That the winningest team in franchise history found itself in such a predicament was a combination of many failings: Bad luck and mistimed mistakes; absent offense and questionable pitching plans; and bad execution most of all, with the Dodgers picking the worst possible time to play some of their worst baseball of the season.

Entering the playoffs, they had been the best team in the majors — on the mound, at the plate, in high leverage situations, everywhere.

But after a week of stranded runners and booted grounders and frustratingly few answers against a division rival they'd dominated all year, the Dodgers' found themselves on the verge of elimination.

After a remarkable 111-win regular season, their World Series dreams were about to be dashed in an autumn blink.

"October baseball," first baseman Freddie Freeman said, "can be very brutal sometimes."

More than a week later, the shock hasn't worn off. Not for Roberts. Not for the front office. Not for just about anyone associated with a team that's captured only one championship — in a pandemic-altered, neutral-site 2020 World Series — out of 10 consecutive postseason trips.

"If you're asking me if I think the best team wins the World Series every year, I would say no," president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at an