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The Dodgers Are Chasing a Bye, Not a Division. The Brewers Already Beat Them to It.
Records current as of Aug. 26, 2026
Los Angeles is 80-52 and leads the NL West comfortably. That part was never really in doubt.
What’s in doubt is seeding. The first-round bye goes to the top two teams in each league, and Milwaukee — carrying the best record in the National League — took three of four from the Dodgers earlier this month and won the season series outright.
For a team going for a third straight championship, the difference between a bye and a wild card series is the whole October.
The current form is good
The Dodgers arrived in Atlanta this week on a six-game winning streak, 7-3 over their last ten, with a +151 run differential that is among the best in baseball.
They rank in the top four in the majors in runs scored at 653. Tyler Glasnow has been dominant — 3-0 with a 2.72 ERA and 49 strikeouts in his recent stretch.
The rotation is also about to get whole. Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani are both set to rejoin the starting rotation within the week, which for a pitching staff heading into October is the most important development of the month.
The offense has been boom-or-bust
That 653-run total conceals a month of inconsistency. The Dodgers’ offense has been feast-or-famine for much of the past four weeks, and it only looked right again during the winning streak.
Then it took a real hit. Andy Pages fractured his left hand on a hit-by-pitch, and one of the team’s most productive run producers will be out at least four weeks — meaning he’s questionable to be right for the start of the postseason.
That puts the weight on players who haven’t carried it consistently this year. Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker have all had uneven seasons. Tucker in particular has struggled badly enough that a deliberate show of support from the Chavez Ravine crowd last week became its own story.
Dave Roberts’ lineup has the names. It hasn’t reliably had the production.
The Milwaukee problem
The Brewers entered late August at 80-49, the best winning percentage in the National League, and have combined consistent pitching with an offense that keeps producing at the right moments.
They also own the head-to-head tiebreaker over Los Angeles.
That’s the specific obstacle. The Dodgers can’t simply out-record Milwaukee down the stretch and assume the bye — a tie goes the other way. They need to be clearly better over the final month, not marginally.
Atlanta is the other team in that conversation, which is why this week’s series at Truist Park carries more weight than an August series normally would.
What the seeding actually decides
Three National League division leaders — Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Atlanta — are competing for two byes. One of them plays a best-of-three wild card series instead.
And the wild card field is where the danger lives. Philadelphia is built for exactly that format: three frontline starters, a real closer, and a roster top-heavy enough that a short series with off days suits it perfectly. Chicago made the playoffs last year from a wild card spot and added Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes at the deadline specifically for October.
Drawing either in a coin-flip series is the outcome Los Angeles spent 162 games trying to avoid.
What has to happen
- Beat Milwaukee’s pace. The tiebreaker is gone, so the record has to be better outright.
- Get the rotation healthy and stay there. Glasnow and Ohtani rejoining is the season’s most consequential news.
- Find production without Pages. Four weeks is most of what’s left.
- Betts, Hernández or Tucker. At least one has to look like himself in September.
The Dodgers have the most talent in baseball and two championships in a row to prove it. What they don’t have, right now, is the clearest path to the round where that talent matters most.
LA Sports Wire covers Dodgers news, schedules and game coverage all season. See the Dodgers schedule for first pitch times and broadcast info, or the NL standings for the current race.