One win down, 119 to go.
I’m not kidding.
Watching the Dodgers’ 8-2 demolition of the Arizona Diamondbacks at Uniqlo Field on Opening Day, who’s to say the two-time defending champions won’t win 120 games?
How could anyone rule out the possibility of the Dodgers breaking the major league record for victories in a season?
Once they were finished with the pregame festivities, the Dodgers went about confirming what was already known about them: They’re better than every other team, and they’re better by a wide margin.
Every one of their nine hitters reached base. Andy Pages and Will Smith homered. Newcomer Kyle Tucker doubled into the gap in right-center and Shohei Ohtani raced home. Yoshinobu Yamamoto started his Cy Young Award campaign by picking up his first win in a six-inning effort. Blake Treinen, Will Klein and Tanner Scott each contributed a scoreless inning in relief.
They looked like a team ready to win a third consecutive World Series. They looked like a team that could win 120 regular-season games on their way there.
Yamamoto laughed when I told him that.
“I hope that happens,” he said in Japanese.
Whether the Dodgers break the single-season wins record of 116 shared by the 1906 Chicago Cubs and 2001 Seattle Mariners will come down to health and intent. They showed last year they would rather enter the postseason in optimal condition than squeeze out a couple of extra regular-season victories, even if that comes at the expense of a first-round bye.
But what if they don’t have to make a choice between one or the other? What if they manage to stay relatively injury-free for the duration of the six-month season?
Under such conditions, 120 wins would be in the realm of possibility.
The lineup card manager Dave Roberts filled out on Thursday could have passed for that of an All-Star team.
A four-time Most Valuable Player batted leadoff. A $240-million right fielder was second, followed by two other former MVPs. Behind them, three former All-Stars.
The pitcher, last year’s World Series MVP.
Compared to the previous 11 versions of the Dodgers he managed, Roberts said, “It’s the best team.”
Better than the 2017 and 2018 teams that won the pennant. Better than the 2020, 2024 and 2025 teams that won the World Series. Better than the 2019 and 2021 teams that won a franchise record 106 games or the 2022 team that set a new mark with 111 victories.
“As far as the talent, the complete buy-in, this team is (the best),” Roberts said.
The 120-win benchmark was floated as a possibility heading into last season by veteran shortstop Miguel Rojas. The record-breaking season didn’t materialize, as the team was ravaged by injuries and its bullpen turned into a dumpster fire.
The Dodgers settled for 93 victories, which won them the National League West by three games.
The experience didn’t make Rojas any less bold, as he was back to claiming a 120-win season was within his team’s reach.
“For me, it’s the same thought,” Rojas said. “We have an opportunity to win every single day. I don’t see a reason why not. To be honest with you, that’s our mentality, that’s our expectation, to win every single game.
“We all know it’s impossible to win 162, but we’re gonna go for it. We don’t feel like there’s any game in this season that we don’t have a chance going into the game to win it.”
Offense comes and goes, and that applies even to Ohtani, but pitching could be why the Dodgers develop a level of consistency that was unattainable last year. They will start the season with three pitchers who would be No. 1 starters on most teams in Yamamoto, Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow. They will have another in the next couple of months when Blake Snell is activated from the injured list.
Of the team’s Four Aces, only Yamamoto pitched the entire season, and the effects on the bullpen were devastating. With their rotation battered, their relievers were burdened with covering more innings than anticipated, leading them to run out of gas. The Dodgers slumped in the middle of the season.
Rather than pursue a top-two seed in the NL that would have resulted in a first-round bye, the Dodgers focused on lining up their pitching for the postseason. Their priorities won’t change this year.
“That’s not our ultimate goal, to see how many wins we can accrue during the regular season,” Roberts said. “That’s certainly not our North Star for this year. It’s really not.”
That being said, the Dodgers don’t want to play in the Wild Card round if they don’t have to.
“We would prefer to win the division and have a bye this year,” general manager Brandon Gomes said.
Gomes called on his team to stay present – or in his words, to remain focused on “trying to win that night’s game.”
Ironically, that day-by-day approach is why these Dodgers could win 120 games, so long as they don’t have any of their key players go down with injuries. Roberts didn’t want to play up the possibility, but he couldn’t discount it either.
“I think anything’s possible, certainly with this team,” he said.