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The Los Angeles Dodgers probably aren’t regretting that they completed a 4-0 sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night. After all, whenever you have a chance to end a National League Championship Series to get into the World Series, you take it, as that Steve Winwood song sort of goes.

That being said, the Dodgers have been facing a wait for it, wait for it, wait for it, challenge as they have had to wait for the Toronto Blue Jays to finish off the Seattle Mariners in seven games on Monday before the World Series starts this Friday, October 24. That will be six days between real games for the Dodgers. The real concern is that this rest could mean a whole lot of rust for a Dodgers team that’s of recent been hotter than a stolen 

50 Shades of Grey book in a microwave, winning nine out of 10 playoff games so far.

History isn’t completely on the Dodgers side when it comes to what might happen with the rest, so to speak, of their playoff run. Teams that have swept their best-of-7 league championship series have gone on to be a dismal 2-7 in the subsequent World Series when they had to wait for their opponent to finish the other LCS. In fact, when you look at the last 15 playoffs where one team finished off its LCS opponent sooner than the other LCS, the teams that finished earlier have had a 3-12 record in the ensuing World Series. On the other hand, the Dodgers are defending World Series champions and have loads of talent, including the biggest “Sho” in baseball.

The Dodgers Face The Risk Of Physical Rust

One concern is physical rust. That’s because the body tends to adjust to whatever it is currently being forced to do. You could say that’s what she or he SAID with SAID, in this case, standing for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. Based on the SAID principle, when you keep playing real baseball games, your body will adapt to be most effective at performing well during those games. However, if all you do is rest or practice, the body will adapt instead to be good at those things, which may not so good for games.

A particular concern is that the big gap will derail the momentum of Dodger designated hitter, pitcher and whatever-else-you-want-him-to-do Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani had gone just 1-for-18 (.056) in the NL Division Series and 1-for-7 (.143) through the first three games of the NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers before “Sho-ing up” in a big, big way in the Game 4 clincher of the NLCS. The oh-my-goodness Ohtani struck out 10 Brewers as a pitcher through six-plus scoreless innings and at the same time blasted three home runs as a hitter, which by the way was more than the two hits that he had allowed as a pitcher. This included his walloping a monster 469-foot blast that left the ball park. Many experts dubbed all of this as the single greatest individual performance in a game in like the history of baseball.

The Dodgers Face The Risk Of Mental Rust

Then there are those things that sit atop players’ bodies, their heads. Being away from the pressures of a real game for so long could lead to players’ losing their mental edges. They may not be quite as ready to deal with the pressures of an actual playoff game. And as is the case with practically all top-level, elite professional sports, the mental game can be the important edge. Being slightly off mentally can mean the difference between getting struck out and hitting home run if you are a hitter, making the proper catch and throw to first base versus muffing it if you are a fielder and getting a batter out versus yielding the game-winning run if you are pitcher.

The Dodgers Will Get Rest

On the other hand, the Dodgers will get a good amount of rest, which will help their bodies recover. Speaking of hands, that could be particularly helpful for the pitching rotation, the main source of the Dodgers’ heat throughout the playoffs. Their fantastic four starting rotation of Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Ohtani have held opponents to a WTF 1.40 collective ERA over 64 1/3 innings in the 2025 postseason. Opponents have whiffed a whopping 39.4% against these starters. These have been historically good numbers.

The Dodgers also finally found their big closer in rookie Roki Sasaki. Sasaki’s four-seam fastball has had an average velocity of 99.2 mph and has allowed just one hit among the 16 batter that have faced it in October. Meanwhile, his splitter has gotten batters to whiff 50% of the time, an amaze-balls split. Sasaki had started off the season as a starter but after getting injured, being demoted to the minors and reworking his mechanics, returned to the team via the bullpen. Since he’s had seven closing appearances during the playoffs so far with three saves, Sasaki probably could use the rest.

The one injured player that the Dodgers could get back is pitcher Tanner Scott. The playoffs have been a pain in the butt for him, literally, as he has missed games due to an infected abscess on his backside. He got to the bottom of this problem during the NLDS Playoff against the Philadelphia Phillies, sitting out much of that series and the NLCS. The rest could help get Scott’s butt back on the field, where his arm could help back up the bullpen.

How Might The Dodgers Stay Sharp

So how might the Dodgers stay in rhythm? Well, one way is to simulate game conditions as much as possible. They did play a seven-inning simulated game this past Sunday. And the next day, they took rounds of live batting practice.

On the physical side, drills that repeat game-like motions can keep their bodies in tune and muscle memory intact. This includes repeating throwing, catching and hitting motions over and over and over again. They’ll want to keep up strength and flexibility training as well so that their muscles don’t weaken or get stiff.

Their mental sides can benefit from continuous training as well. This can include different mindfulness exercises to stay calm, cognitive drills to keep reaction times fast and visualization techniques to rehearse how to handle different situations. Video games could help both the mental and physical side, as I’ve covered in 

Forbes previously. It can also help to maintain game-day like routines so that once the real games arrive, they won’t have to adjust as much.

Maintaining the bonds and camaraderie among the teammates will be important too. The players need to stay in sync so that can more easily do the activities that require coordination such as the pitchers and the catchers working together and the fielders throwing to each other. Plus, when teammates are used to being around each other, they can more quickly recognize each others’ emotions and stress and thus offer to proper encouragement. The Dodgers have been making efforts to spend time together at the ballpark. For example, on Sunday and Monday, they hung around with each other through the end of each workout, including following Games 6 and 7 of the American League Championship Series together as the action was played on the stadium scoreboard.

The Dodgers as an organization do have recent experience handling such layoffs. They handled playoff layoffs poorly in 2022 and 2023, when they were upset in the playoffs after bye weeks. But last season, they did handle the bye week well, as in go all the way to win the World Series title well.

So this year, the Dodgers have more of a playbook on how to balance the rest versus rust thing. And what happens this Friday when the Dodgers travel to Toronto to take on the Blue Jays in Game 1 of the World Series will “Sho” how well the Dodgers will have handled this week.

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