98. World Series Drought, Part 1

The afterglow of a magical 1988 hung over Los Angeles into the year’s winter months, but baseball fans are notoriously greedy. It was the team’s first World Series title in seven years, only the second since 1965. How long would it be before they did it again?

Longer than anyone would have imagined. Long enough that before another title came, the franchise that wrote the book The Dodger Way to Play Baseball would lose its way.

Despite bolstering the infield before the 1989 season by trading for future Hall of Fame first baseman Eddie Murray and finding Yankee stalwart Willie Randolph to replace Steve Sax at second base, the Dodgers couldn’t withstand the continued health problems of ’88 NL MVP Kirk Gibson (who was limited to 292 plate appearances) and fell to 77–83 and fourth place in the NL West. To illustrate the difference between the two seasons, 1988 Cy Young award winner Orel Hershiser posted the same ERA+ of 148, but his won-lost record fell from 23–8 to 15–15.

Hershiser’s workload caught up with him the following April, as he went out with the shoulder injury that would sideline him for nearly 14 months. And at the outset of the 1990s, the series of poor Dodgers drafts caught up with Los Angeles, which increasingly had to look outside the organization (Kal Daniels, Hubie Brooks, Juan Samuel) for help. Mike Scioscia was the only homegrown Dodger in 1990 to get more than 160 plate appearances. Murray led the major leagues in batting average, and 22-year-old Ramon Martinez added a 2.92 ERA (126 ERA+) and 223 strikeouts in 2341/3 innings, but the Dodgers settled for 86 wins and a second-place finish in the NL West.

In a bid to put themselves over the top, the Dodgers again sought external help, bringing Darryl Strawberry back to his hometown before the 1991 season, along with center fielder Brett Butler. Both made huge contributions—Strawberry had 28 homers and a TAv of .312—but the Dodgers were sandbagged by the rise of the Atlanta Braves from last to first in the division. Though they resided in first place from May 14 until the final weekend of the season, the Dodgers lost two games at San Francisco while the Braves were defeating Houston to deprive Los Angeles of a postseason spot.

From 93 wins in 1991 came the 99-loss disaster of 1992, in which the offense, young and old, faltered in almost every way imaginable. But despite the well-chronicled, crushing trade of Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields after that season, an infusion of young talent raised hopes of an imminent return to the World Series. Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, and Todd Hollandsworth gave the Dodgers five Rookies of the Year in a row. The Dodgers were swept in first-round playoff series in both 1995 and 1996, and Tommy Lasorda had given away to Bill Russell as manager after suffering a heart attack, but expectations were raised. Surely they were on the right track.

However, the 1997 Dodgers never recovered from a devastating 12-inning loss at Candlestick Park that knocked them out of first place with eight games remaining in the season. The following year, after the O’Malley family sold the team, the trade of Mike Piazza and Todd Zeile for Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla, Charles Johnson, longtime Dodgers nemesis Jim Eisenreich, and a minor leaguer left the Dodgers in neutral: 19–21 before the trade, 64–58 after. Though the Dodgers had the third-best record in the majors (behind Atlanta and Oakland) from 1988–1997 and had gone to the playoffs more years than any team except the Braves, 10 years had passed since the team’s last victory in a postseason game. Impatience dominated the Dodgers’ next decade.

 

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Sandy Koufax shares the Dodgers record for strikeouts in a game—and not just with himself. Koufax fanned 18 San Francisco Giants on August 31, 1959 (Koufax needing to score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth on a Wally Moon home run) and then matched that performance by striking out 18 Cubs at Wrigley Field on April 24, 1962.

But on June 4, 1990, a lanky 22-year-old right-hander from the Dominican Republic matched Koufax. Ramon Martinez shut out the Atlanta Braves on three hits while recording 18 of the first 24 outs by strikeout. Martinez couldn’t break the team record, but in the post-Koufax era, the Dodgers have not seen a more dominating performance by one of their pitchers.

Martinez threw more than 120 pitches over a dozen times in 1990 and even crossed 130 and 140 pitches multiple times. His career peaked that season, offering at least one cautionary tale for those who suggest pitch counts—especially at a young age—don’t mean anything.